


Ice Touched By The Sun

by Jellycho



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Complete, Drama, M/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 03:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1290337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jellycho/pseuds/Jellycho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[AU] A hunt through the woods is just one of the things Lea has already gotten used to in his list of stuff to do. One day his hunt takes him deeper into the sea of trees, and then everything gets complicated when he decides to decipher the secrets of the seemingly abandoned mansion he finds in the woods, and then of the mage he meets inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Mansion Trapped In Ice And Snow

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first multi chapter fic that I somehow manage to complete, and I wanted to share it here. The story was inspired by Frozen and by a song titled The Beast. by vocaloid, and by many other outside sources that, overall, influenced the direction this story took. I hope you enjoy it.  
> I dedicate this to my best friend, for helping me by listening to me ramble endlessly about this plot and being the best beta ever.

Like most things in life the story is not planned. The coincidence of events is far too great, too perfect, turning a simple hunting trip through the woods into the strangest of happenings.

A man ventures into the forbidden parts of the woods. The redheaded hunter hadn't really planned to do so-- the game he's pierced with an arrow just so happened to run there, and he is not one to waste food, or opportunities. A trail of blood takes Lea through the thick foliage, and he's just about to give up and turn away when he breaks into a giant mansion's front yard, and it immediately catches his attention.

The dead animal isn't even glanced at. As usual he doesn't think, prefers to let his curiosity and instincts guide him and show him what's in front of him. So he carelessly jumps the main gate, runs toward the entrance. When a gentle push doesn't suffice, he puts all of his strength into opening the doors until they give, and he winces at all the noise they make.

"Hello?" comes his voice, resonating through the huge, empty main hall. Lea doesn't expect a response, so he doesn't even wait for the silence to bounce back at him-- he shrugs, closes the door and steps inside with an amazed whistle to explore the lost mansion he's ended up inside of.

It's uneventful. The walk through the cold hallways does nothing but bore him, but still he presses on. Lea contemplates the paintings on the walls as he passes them by; old, tattered, faded pictures that somehow haunt the place with their stares, telling a story long forgotten even by the cold early December wind.

He doesn't notice how far into the mansion he walks. At some point Lea's travels take him to a ballroom, empty and lonely and dusty, but still intimidating and powerful in structure. The general look of the place tells him of a time of golden balls, parties, music sneaking into the rest of the place with the laughter of hundreds of visitors joined together, maybe even more, though for some reason his gut doesn't let him believe that.

Lea loses himself in his mind, taking in the reconstructed imaginary scenery with a soft laugh. Perhaps his happy remembrance of olden times he does not know is the reason why he doesn't think it weird when someone suddenly sneezes. "Bless you," he shouts back, spinning in an imaginary dance until the weight of the sound comes crashing down on him, and he stops.

"Wait, what?"

A mere two seconds pass before Lea realizes he's under attack. "Woah, stop!" he yells as he steps back from the sudden ice spikes coming from the floor and toward him. He successfully avoids them until his back hits a wall and stops him, with another spike forming and pointing right onto his throat, ready to kill him should he struggle.

"Wait!" Lea pathetically squeaks out. Embarrassed of his own voice he pauses, blinks, clears his throat, and tries again. "Please don't kill me!"

"How did you find me?" a surprisingly young voice irradiating anger calls.

Lea blinks; he'd expected a horrific monster-like voice, not a young man's. After letting the sound soak him he realizes that the man's voice is croaky and hoarse, almost as if he hasn't spoken in a very, very long time. He's confused though; where is it coming from? "Uh," he tries, "I was out hunting and, um, I kinda found this place. You know, the usual--"

"How many of you are here?"

"Relax, it's just good ol' me." Lea sighs shakily, and doesn't bother in fixing his squeak again when the ice spike at his throat suddenly gets closer. "Hey, what gives--?!"

"Your weapons," the voice thunders immediately, regaining some strength the more he talks. "Drop them at once."

The redhead can't help glaring, but complies anyway. In the most careful of motions he grabs his visible weapons -- a hunting sword, a bow and the quiver -- and drops them to the ground. He keeps the spare knife hidden in his coat, however, thinking that one can never be too cautious in a scenario such as this one.

He squints all the while, trying to make out the figure behind all of the ice. Lea sees the silhouette of a man, with an arm raised and looking strong enough to press a threat in the case of a battle, not to mention the fact that he can obviously use magic. And that's the very first thing that pins his interest; magic. The redhead has only heard of mages and witches in stories and legends, some of them too old for Lea to even believe in them.

And yet, even then, now here in front of him is a man wearing a cape with a hood, standing proudly in the middle of the room and summoning ice at a simple gesture of his arm. After a while Lea realizes that he just can't see his face; it's hidden under the brown hood, and only his mouth is visible from where he stands. The way the man's face is contorted reminds Lea of a scared animal facing down a predator, and that makes him even more dangerous.

Still, Lea tries to calm his nerves and the man with his stupid sense of humour. "There, your majesty. Now I'm unarmed." The hunter's voice is dripping with sarcasm. He continues glaring at the other for a while before wiggling into a position that is still just barely comfortable. "Hey, can you please lower these?" he carefully taps the ice spike still dangerously close to his throat. "It's getting ridiculously hard to breathe and talk."

The figure in front of him goes silent, hesitates for a few seconds before he relaxes his stance just a little bit. He lowers his arm and the ice melts at his unspoken command, the puddles it leaves behind cleaning away some of the dust on the floor.

Lea sighs in relief and nervously stretches a little to help his sore muscles. Then he whistles, chuckles and smiles at the other, trying to ease the atmosphere around them when he points at the puddle and says, "That's a nice way to clean."

"Leave."

Lea flinches and frowns. "But I just got--"

 _"Leave,"_ The man repeats, turning and walking out of the room. Ice forms with each step he takes, melting every time he takes his foot off the ground, making for the strangest, most amazing scene Lea has ever been a witness to. "Do not come back."

And with that he's gone, the hallway opening that he's disappeared into freezing over in an attempt to keep Lea from following him after, creating a barrier of ice that looks thick and strong without even needing to get close to it. The redhead gets the hint; he sighs, picks up his weapons and walks back outside, feeling defeated and disappointed.

He throws the mansion one last glance, frowning, before he jumps the wall and gets back to hunting.

* * *

Three days later, the mansion's doors open a second time.

An all-familiar redhead steps inside, and he really doesn't know why he's doing this. "Helloooo," he shouts. "I'm coming in! I hope you don't mind!"

He doesn't waste any time. Lea grins, closes the doors, and then follows the same path as last time, going into the ballroom and shouting to see how long it takes until the hooded man attempts to murder him again. After waiting a few minutes Lea gets bored, drops his things on the ground and proceeds to explore the rest of the room that he couldn't before. It's not really that much; everything is either frozen over or destroyed by the pass of time, or otherwise completely dirty. It's almost disappointing.

But only almost. A suit or armour catches his eye. "Well aren't you handsome," Lea whispers as he approaches it, poking the helmet. The metal is cold and hollow, and when he flicks his fingers on its chest, the sound is loud and strong. It makes him smile and hum. He wonders if the helmet would be good enough to hide his spiky hair. Looking around for the man he's waiting for, he chuckles when he finds no trace of him, then smirks as he slowly reaches for the helmet.

It's cold to the touch, but not unbearably so, or at least it isn't if he doesn't rest his hand against it and leaves it there for longer than three, five seconds at most. Once his skin familiarizes itself with the temperature of the metal, Lea plucks it off from the suit's neck and turns it around in his hands, measuring the weight and size, wondering if he could really get away with this idea before--

The metal freezes over and Lea drops the helmet with a shriek, and the sound resonates through the room making him flinch and curl into himself. After a second passes him by the redhead blinks at the object on the floor, frowns, reconnects the dots, and then uncurls himself and turns around to face his host.

"I told you not to come back," says the hooded man, voice angry and threatening both at once. "Leave."

"Oh, come on!" Lea whines and pouts, trying his best to ignore the anxiety at the bottom of his stomach. "I came here to visit!"

The frown is practically audible in the other's voice. "You are not welcome here."

"Don't be a jerk. Look," Lea points toward the pile of stuff at the other's feet. "I'm unarmed! And I brought a peace offering."

Slowly the hooded man looks down at his feet, gasps in silence, and steps away from the weapons so messily discarded on the floor. Then the sneer hits his face. "Leave."

The redhead raises both hands in a peaceful gesture. "Woah, easy. I'm not trying to get killed here."

"It doesn't seem that way. Get out."

"Can we just--"

"Leave!"

The icy spikes are back with a raise of the other's arm. Lea dodges them as quickly as he can, stumbling out of the way and later staring in horror at how close he could've been to certain death; the ice is stabbed onto the suit of armour he so casually played with a few minutes ago. Lea gulps and exhales shakily; the other's freezing magic has him enchanted, but he really, _really_ needs to be more careful.

"This is your last warning," the hooded one speaks and breaks the spell of the glittering ice crystal in front of Lea, making him turn to look at him when he continues. "Next time I see you in here, I _will_ kill you," his voice is strangled and shaky, and yet it still holds enough power to send a shiver down the redhead's spine.

He stands there, watching Lea like a hawk until the bastard decides to leave. It doesn't take long -- the uncomfortable feeling of being observed is unbearable. Lea sighs, walks over to the pile of stuff and gathers his things slowly, then slowly advances and avoids the ice mage as he walks out of the ballroom with yet another disappointed pout.

He steps into the hallway and suddenly stops. "Oh wait," he says, looking into his bag quickly, mumbling something in his excitement. Lea watches, from the corner of his eye and in the deepest amusement, as the man in the hood stiffens, lowers his stance, prepares himself to strike this trespasser down should he even _dare_ attack--

But then he shrieks when an object is thrown at him. Lea watches, grinning, as the man quickly stabs the object with a spike of ice from the floor. A few seconds pass until the mage realizes what's just happened, and both men stare at the impaled apple in the middle of them, not daring to break the silence until Lea speaks.

"Peace offering," Lea's voice can't hide the laughter caught in his throat.

But the mage doesn't seem to find it funny, and he growls. "Get out of here," he warns, voice dropping along with the room's temperature. "Now."

When he turns to leave the ice created at his feet grows in size, once more blocking away the hallway he goes into so that Lea cannot follow him. The redhead shouts for him to stop, even though he knows it's useless. He tries touching the ice, trying to figure out if he could break it down if he applies enough force... but in the end he decides against it.

Lea sighs and takes the same route to the exit that he's regrettably already memorized.


	2. The Mage And The Hunter

Days pass, and Lea stays away from the mansion deep in the woods. Though his mind urges him to go and try again just once more, Lea knows that he can't do that-- the hooded man had made it very clear that the next breath he took within his walls would be his last.

Another hunting trip passes by with him just looking at the fancy building from within the woods. For some unknown reason, as time goes on, the mansion becomes the most interesting thing in the world to him, and without going inside and stupidly risking his life again, the trips get boring absurdly fast.

A week and a half after his last visit, Lea gets an idea. A stupid, idiotic idea that might get him killed, but it's still better than the sudden boredom he feels, and also definitely worth the try. So the next time he's out there in the forbidden parts of the woods, surrounded by the silence and the snow, Lea approaches the main gates again with a mission in mind... and a bag in his hand containing just a few apples that he simply throws over the metal gates.

It feels weird to just throw it and leave. For a few seconds Lea stands there, looking over into the main field trying to convince himself not to jump over and go into the ballroom once again, to provoke the other and deliver the present right into his hands... but the redheaded hunter knows he really shouldn't push his luck so much.

Lea sighs, turns around and goes back into the woods for the day.

After that a sense of routine comes back to him and everything seems okay once more. Lea doesn't miss the golden, dusty ballroom anymore, or the paintings of old that follow him with their eyes. Or the magic in discovering a whole isolated and hidden world available to him so easily. The only thing that still calls for him is the man within those frozen walls and the mysteries he possesses. It's not every day that one gets to find a magic user, after all, and Lea is oh so curious to find out just why it is that he got his powers. Or where, and maybe then he could get himself some.

The hunter shakes his head to get such thoughts off him. He's thinking way too far.

So every hunting day he packs a few apples, maybe some other fruits, in a bag. Every hunting day Lea makes sure he doesn't run into the older parts of the woods, that he's careful with his steps so that he doesn't fall and lose his peace offerings. And he manages, regardless of how strong the snow gets, the cold; Lea never once gives up on throwing the bag over the main gates, waiting a few minutes to see if the hooded man appears.

He never does, of course, but he presses on anyway.

Days pass, they become weeks. The weeks slowly turn into the next month, and still the hunter continues his routine, becoming pleased every time he returns to find an empty bag to replace with the new one. Of course, it might just be the animals feasting on the free food, but Lea prefers to think that maybe the ice mage takes well to getting the occasional gift. Maybe.

The snow gets weaker with the pass of time and blinding white storms become soft snowfalls, cold but not chilling to the bone, and light enough to be traversable. It doesn't take long before the redhead's cockiness comes back to him, and he underestimates his surroundings, missing that one rock just by a centimeter and falling down the cold mount of snow, hitting a rock on his way down.

He screams-- he's broken his arm with the impact, made a few cuts that, though small, still manage to bleed and hurt. He takes his time to writhe in pain, groan and moan and whine about the event until Lea clicks his tongue and stops in his tracks. He slowly sits up, gathers his things with his one functional arm. "Suck it up, Lea," he whispers to himself between pained groans, thinking on his options as he trembles with pain.

Maybe the smartest thing to do now would be to turn around and go home, find a medic, make do with what leftovers he has until his arm heals. A hunter on the outside who's not to their full potential is dead meat, after all. And who knows-- maybe someone will take pity and help him out.

Yet at the same time, it's been a really long time since the last visit he paid his hooded friend's main gates... and Lea doesn't want to fail him, now does he?

Even if the air isn't as cold as before, sitting there is still a bad idea anyway. So he decides in a hurry; he'll rush to the mansion, leave the fruit, and quickly go back home and desperately find himself a doctor. How long will it take anyway? Ten minutes, maybe a little more? Whatever it is, the redhead knows he can still make it.

On the way to the main gates Lea gets the worst rush of bad luck he has ever experienced. He trips, gets hit in the face with stray branches. He even manages to lose half the apples in the bag, courtesy of a hole in the fabric. Not that they were a lot before, but still.

Combine that with the constant pain of his left arm, and suddenly Lea's asking himself just why the hell he's doing all of this. But even then he doesn't stop; he's got a goal in mind, and he's already come so far...

Lea reaches the main gates before his mind even has the time to say 'fuck this.' And it's so weird how a couple of metallic gates are suddenly a mental synonym with the most overwhelming feeling of relief Lea's ever experienced, but maybe that's just the broken bone speaking. Yeah, definitely the bone.

The man walks slowly and mentally considers just dropping the bag in the middle of the road and leaving. It's not like the hooded bastard would have much to complain about; he'd still be getting free food, and what's a little walking effort to a magician, anyway? But in the end Lea sighs. No, that's just rude, and he's trying to make the best impression possible, right? So the redhead begrudgingly presses on, and finally once he's right up to the gates he drops to his knees to rest up against it.

It doesn't really make sense to him. The broken bone is in his arm, not his legs, so why does he need to sit down so desperately? Maybe it's just the numbing pain of his arm that spreads all over his body and makes everything harder than it really is, and maybe he just really needs a good rest before going back home. Yeah, that's it. He rests his back against the wall surrounding the man's mansion, Lea exhales in relief as he notices that there's a small trail of tiny drops of blood on the white snow. Huh, must've been the cuts all over his limbs. Not that he cares much by this point; he's just so tired.

Lea throws his head back to rest against the wall and closes his eyes. It's so cold, but he's in too much pain to keep moving anymore. Suddenly all of this finally registers in his mind as the worst possible idea he could ever have come up with, and the regret finally settles in just a little too late; Lea passes out right there, his head falling against his shoulder as the world around him fades away into a dreamless rest.

* * *

The sound of a very distant voice is the first thing that breaks into the black unconscious in Lea's mind. A few absent tries at making out the words brings back his hearing, and slowly, as he opens his eyes and concentrates, his sight. This way Lea realizes where he is, with his body slowly reconnecting with his brain to do a quick analysis of the world around him.

It's a very, very fancy room, maybe one used by some royal or a lord. Above him the first thing he sees is the majestic fabric of a bed's curtains. When he breathes Lea realizes that on top of him lies a thick, stiff blanket, but it's cold as ice like everything else in the room and it fails at warming him up even in the slightest. Really, it's a miracle he hasn't entered a state of hypothermia, considering where he was before.

Turning his head to his right reveals a balcony's doors open for him to appreciate the sky, and this way he realizes that it is late dusk. Connecting the dots of the morning's events and the present, Lea assumes that he is currently in one of the mansion's bedrooms.

That makes him frown. He doesn't understand why quite yet, but he supposes that the slowly intensifying voice in the room will tell him something. So Lea, still in pain but noticing the messy medical job his arm has been subjected to, carefully sits up on the bed with a low groan and watches.

"No," a man with his back to Lea says. His hood is down, revealing long blue hair and sidebangs whenever he turns his head around just enough to see them. "I'm doing something wrong, I just know it. But what is it? The books are unreadable past a certain point where I..."

How curious it is to see such a silent, threatening man suddenly talk to himself so much and so loudly. A quick, second glance at Lea's surroundings reveals a gorgeous, curiously modest-sized room almost completely frozen over. Most noticeable is a huge bookcase standing tall and proud before the blue haired man, and the snow gently slipping through the balcony door that lies open for some unknown reason.

The man desperately rummages through his bookcase, oblivious. "Come on, Isa, try to remember," he mumbles loud enough for Lea to hear, skimming book after book before dropping them to the floor and grabbing another, repeating the process. "It's not really been that long. You couldn't just have forgotten this. It's not like--"

A sudden sneeze from Lea stops him, so he utters a small "oh, bless you," and absently goes back to work. "Now, as I was saying--"

It's funny to see this man, apparently the same one Lea encountered in that ballroom so long ago go deadly silent, tense up, then drop the book in hand like a guilty cat caught in the act. Very slowly the mage turns his head around, letting Lea see the rest of his features-- an uncovered forehead, a pair of scared sea green eyes that look almost comical compared with the old image of him so imprinted in Lea's mind.

Lea smiles weakly, trembling at the cold. "I-Isa, was it?" he tests the name and takes the other's flinching as a yes. "It'd be v-very n-nice of you if you cl-closed the doors."

Isa stares at him for a few seconds, lost, before he blinks and rushes to the balcony doors to slam them closed as fast as possible. He bites a wince at the loud sound they make. Isa doesn't turn to look back at Lea-- just stands there with both hands over each door's windows, staring out into the weak snowfall.

"Where did you learn my name?" his voice is so small that Lea has to strain himself to listen.

The redhead brings his right arm to rub at his broken left one as gently as he can. "Y-you said it yourself just now."

Isa whispers a small curse. "Why did you come here?" he asks louder this time, "Why do you keep coming back, leaving a bag full of apples behind?"

"So you did n-notice. Th-they're like, s-smaller p-peace offerings." Lea's smile is hard to maintain with all the trembling, so it doesn't last. For some reason he's having trouble warming up, so he tries to wrap himself in the cold blanket. The attempt is futile and he lets out a shaky breath. "You know, a f-fire would be nice t-too."

The blue haired turns around quickly and stares at him in horror. "Fire...?" then the harshness comes back to his face and voice, and he transforms into the ice mage that Lea knows so much. "No. Make it yourself."

"I c-can't even move!" Lea shouts. "Do you want me to f-freeze to death or what?"

The scowl Isa gives him scares him into silence. For a moment he had forgotten how, while this man has saved his life, he has also tried to kill him before and could very easily put an end to him right here and now. Yet for some reason all Isa does is growl, click his tongue and angrily avert his eyes before setting the hood over his face again.

Isa quickly storms out of the room before Lea can even think of calling out to him, slamming the door on the way out. Slowly after his leave, the room warms up considerably.

* * *

After the temperature reaches a certain point, Lea can finally move without the cold hurting anymore. So he patches himself up just a tad bit better with what little medical knowledge he has, starts up the fireplace and promptly realizes that he is hungry.

Yet he doesn't know if he should really go out there. It's already night time, it might be colder outside, he might get lost, he might come face to face with sir angry ice mage and die. And, quite frankly, neither option sounds very inviting.

Lea pouts. If only he knew where all of his equipment is, then he could try digging for the apples he had brought for Isa. He'd forgotten to ask if he had really taken them or just watched the redhead throw them and leave. Just because he mentioned them doesn't mean he cared much about them. Perhaps he didn't even pick them up. That's kinda sad.

But he digresses. Still wrapped up in the blanket, Lea walks toward the glass doors that Isa closed. The redhead looks through them and sees a perfect view of the main field and the wall, with the huge metal gates to his right and the woods seemingly very far away. The snowfall has now completely stopped, and a closer look doesn't reveal the leather of the bag on the white grounds, so it's either been covered under the snow or taken into the building along with him.

Well, that's a little bit of hope, he supposes.

Even with these news the redheaded hunter is still apprehensive about leaving the room. The crackling of the fire and the room's melting ice are a sign that this is probably the warmest room in the whole mansion, and the idea of getting lost and freezing to death is just all too real for him to ignore.

Plus, he's injured. What kind of idiot would go into the lion's den while injured? But then again, he kind of already is in there. What is there to lose, really?

But the cold... But the hunger...

Oh, screw it.

Lea straightens up before the glass doors, wrapping himself further into the blanket. He looks at his own reflection and nods seriously. "Let's go," he whispers to himself, and just as he turns around to leave the room's wooden door opens.

Lea pretends to ignore the sudden rush of coldness. "Oh, come on!" he shouts pathetically.

A very confused, still hooded Isa tilts his head. "Pardon?"

"Nevermind," Lea sighs and sits on the edge of the bed. He pouts at Isa to hide the growing anxiety at having him back. "What do you want?"

"I've come to deliver this."

Isa allows himself into the room and sets a frozen silver plate on the small tea table near the fireplace. On the tray is a bowl of soup that Lea can only assume has been frozen as well, either on accident or on purpose is up to debate. There's a few mixed fruits and a cup of tea along with it, probably frozen too, but it's still better than nothing.

The redhead is about to mention the lack of meat when Isa, seemingly out of nowhere, produces the bag where he keeps his game in and sets it next to the table. "I thought you'd enjoy having this back," he mumbles. Lea's confused and somewhat pleading eyes force him to continue: "I can't cook more than this. You'll have to see what you can do with it yourself."

Lea frowns. "But where's my equipment?"

"I will be holding onto that just a tad bit longer."

"But I can't do anything without my--"

"There are cooking utensils in the kitchen," Isa's scowl is hidden, but it can still be felt and it shuts Lea up immediately. "Any cooking you attempt will be under my supervision, and you are not to leave my sight with a weapon in hand. Am I clear?"

Lea can't hide the bewilderment in his face. "My arm is broken."

"It's not your right arm."

"Can't I at least have a pocket knife to skin this rabbit and cook it over the fireplace?"

"Kitchens," Isa delivers slowly, "were made for cooking. Not bedrooms."

"But what happens if the kitchen's frozen up as well?"

"Enough!" the ice mage shouts, suddenly angry, and the room's temperature drops along with his voice. The fire goes out and the windows freeze over, catching Lea off guard as he gasps in both surprise and pain and curls further into himself. He can't see the blue haired man's reaction; he's closed his eyes and hid his face into the blanket to regain some warmth. But the following silence along with his hesitation when Isa finally does speak back up clue him as to what's going on in his head, maybe.

"I will allow you to stay in here until you heal," he whispers in a shaky voice, and Lea assumes it's because of anger, "and then you will leave. Forever. Only then will you get your things back. Do not push my patience any further with your stupid conversations."

Isa turns around and slams the door closed when he exits the room again, leaving behind a trembling Lea waiting for the room to warm up once more... _then_ he'll see about the rabbit.

* * *

Every day after that Isa presents him with bowls of frozen soup that Lea then heats up over the fireplace, and maybe some of the apples that he'd brought over during the past month. Oh, good. That answers the question of whether or not he picked them up. After a couple of days of noticing the bag with the rabbit going untouched, Isa simply takes it away, stating that he'll keep it frozen for Lea's later consumption.

"Yeah, sure. Thanks," Lea sulks.

The pass of time makes itself painfully evident to Lea. It's almost a nightmare, but three weeks in he begins to grow used to it, and the rest is no problem. Very slowly his arm heals up, and he carries it around on a homemade cast that he's sure the doctors at home would yell at him for.

But there's still something that he can't ignore; the food. It doesn't take long until the redhead gets sick of the soup, and one day when his cold and serious caretaker appears, pun completely intended, he speaks up:

"I wanna cook the rabbit now."

They haven't spoken out of the blue for so long that Isa, startled by the suddenness of Lea's voice, almost trips and drops the soup. He still manages to cover it up and almost make it seem as if Lea just imagined it though, and afterwards he stares at the hunter under his hood, with Lea having to bite back the smirk at the other's confused voice.

"What?"

"I said," goes Lea again as he stands up from the chair next to the fireplace, "that I'd like to cook the rabbit I hunted now."

It seems as though Isa has already forgotten what to do in this situation, like he's forgotten what he told Lea about cooking on the first day. He continues staring at Lea as if he were trying to find the answer in his face somehow until the redhead snorts.

"I think this is the part where you help me to the kitchen."

"Oh!" And just like that, Isa goes back to having full control. "Yes, of course. Follow me."

* * *

The kitchen is smaller than what Lea had expected. Maybe it's because of all the long hallways and big rooms that he's gotten to see so far that he thinks the rest of the building's areas look the same. But the moment he goes into the kitchen he's reminded again that, no, Lea, a mansion isn't the same thing as a castle.

It's still quite the impressive room though. Lea can't help uttering a tiny word of amazement when he sees the room almost completely frozen over, the ice glittering with the the light coming from the windows. It all has a strange blue hue to it. It's beautiful, maybe, but still very impractical.

Lea exhales through his mouth and isn't really that surprised when he can see his breath fog up. "I knew it'd be frozen over too."

"Shut up and get on with it," Isa snaps with enough aggression to get Lea tense again.

Out of the corner of his eye the redhead sees him walk away to sit on a frozen counter, hands hovering on his hood as if he were trying to decide whether to let it down or keep it on. Lea wonders if he only puts it on when he's in the room with him, and sighs when the mage's hands go down to rest over his lap. Seems like the hood's not coming off today. How disappointing.

The redhead shakes his head and gets himself to work. Grabbing the bag with the rabbit Isa so nicely kept frozen for him, Lea picks up a knife and speaks over his own shoulder. "I'm gonna need this place to be, y'know, not covered in ice, if you could help me with that."

With a wave of his hand Isa unfreezes the general area where Lea's working on, almost quietly. It's that way because Lea can still hear the annoyed grumble come out of his lips, despite the other's claim that he never said anything, he's been quiet the whole time. A few remarks later Lea shuts his mouth and rolls his eyes, not wanting to argue any further, and decides to start by skinning the rabbit... somehow.

It's such a difficult, long task to do something so simple with only one hand. A few times he considers asking the ice mage for help, but he always decides against it. He's got this, damn it. He can totally do it himself.

By the time he's done preparing the meat for cooking Lea's already starving. "So not cool," he whispers under his breath as he takes a short break. A few minutes later he begins to prepare the fire very carefully. Knowing the other's apparent aversion to the element, Lea makes sure the other isn't really paying attention when he brings forth the fire.

He allows himself a moment of pride and a smile while looking at the flame. He's almost done. Goodness, it's almost over. After this Lea never wants to cook with one arm ever again.

"I don't understand why you're here."

The words are so sudden they startle him, and Lea glances at the mage without stopping what he's doing to pretend that didn't happen. He sees Isa staring at his hands, absently creating a small flurry of snowflakes to keep himself entertained.

Lea smiles in confusion. "Uh, because you let me in?"

"Exactly," Isa replies, not taking his eyes off the snowfall in his hands. "Many more have come before you. Curious explorers whom I've scared away, savage thieves whom I've had to kill before they killed me-- all kinds of people, really." With a frown the snowfall in his hands gets stronger, a little bit more erratic.

"I could've killed you too," he continues in a mumble. "I was going to do it, but for some reason I didn't. You came back, and I still didn't kill you. You threw apples over my gates and I still didn't strike you down from my balcony-- just observed you, picked up the damn things and stored them away in the pantry until I had to take _you_ in, with your broken arm and other injuries and..."

Lea's already cooking the rabbit, listening to the other's words carefully while he hopes the smell won't set him off. He's wrong, of course, and it doesn't take long before Isa stops and turns to look at him, his mouth portraying the frown his eyes are probably wearing.

The redhead raises his good hand in a peace sign and defense. "You can't expect me to cook without a fire."

"Do what you want," the mage snaps, the snow disappearing as he gets up and storms out of the room as if his instructions for Lea to always be under his watch were suddenly cancelled out. Lea doesn't even care calling out to him again; he just sighs, finishes cooking his food. Once he's done with that he makes the trip back to his room to eat alone, maybe read if he's in the mood.

He doesn't see Isa again that day. Maybe that's for the best.

* * *

The meat meal is very appreciated by his stomach and body. The next time Lea sees Isa he actually pouts at the soup, asks the other why he can't have any more, why is it always soup. He needs nourishment, damn it.

Almost shyly, Isa looks away. "I can't... hunt."

"Is this all you eat then?" The mage nods slowly, almost hesitatingly, and Lea frowns. He can't imagine a life eating soups only, and frozen ones at that. That's just not a way to live. All of a sudden an idea pops into his head, so he looks back at Isa with determined eyes and a big smile, sure that the two of them are now acquainted enough for him to be suggesting such things without needing to mince his words this one time.

"I could hunt for you."

Isa does a double take. "What? No."

"Come on!" Lea shouts, suddenly so excited he's grinning now. "I can hunt you something and cook it here, and we both get to eat. Your kitchen's like, ten times better than mine, too."

"You're not coming back here ever again. That was the deal--"

"Please, Isa, there's nothing to lose with this!"

"Do not say my name!" Isa's shouting and the freezing of the chair he's currently sitting on almost scares him, but in time Lea's learned to identify which shouts are angry ones and which ones are confused, afraid. Still, Lea decides to shut up while he finishes talking. "Why do you even want to be in here so much?! There is nothing here for you."

"Which is why I'm suggesting that I at least hunt and cook for you. C'mon, it's a nice service to have." Lea dares a look around the room, making a face to express his thoughts without speaking to let them sink in on Isa. The whole thing is just a cover up; all he wants is to come back to continue gathering information to help him break the mystery behind Isa. He knows that he can't really push the man around and get him to speak all he wants, but still. What's he supposed to do when the big secret and its holder are just so intriguing?

After a while he ends up talking, risking it all for the sake of a little bit of knowledge. "It doesn't look like there are any servants here either," he says as casually as he possibly can. "Whatever happened to them? And... how long have you been here?"

The air in the room immediately gets colder, and Lea stealthily prepares himself for the upcoming storm that is linked with Isa's prickly armour and determination to keep everything about himself hidden and protected. This isn't the first time the redhead asks the mage about himself, but it sure is the first time that he does so in such an open, casual manner.

But he can't help it. The question's been in his mind for a long time, festering and making him speculate to entertain himself, the curiosity getting worse with each time he goes into the hallways to explore or reach another room.

Isa doesn't answer for a bit. He remains there, staring down at the floor, and Lea wonders when it really was that he took his hood off and sat down with him by the fireplace, and why it seems like such a normal thing that he's simply ignored and let it happen. It's easier to read his mood with his face uncovered; he seems troubled, maybe even upset. Lea wonders if what happened wasn't as nice as he once speculated, if he's crossed a line that he really wasn't supposed to get over.

It's a surprise when, instead of storming off like he usually does, Isa slowly stands up from the chair he's in. He looks at Lea with eyes clouded with an emotion that he can't quite pinpoint, nods politely, lifts the hood over his face, and speaks in the softest, most tired voice the redhead's heard from him:

"Excuse me, I will be leaving now."

For the first time during his visit the door is not slammed closed. Lea is, reasonably, very confused.

* * *

Coincidentally enough, Lea's arm fully heals almost at the end of the winter. On the day that he's supposed to leave they go to the ballroom, where Isa does as promised and hands him over his stuff. He then steps away to a safer distance while the redhead prepares himself for departure.

Lea notices and laughs. "Do you still think I'd harm you at this point?"

"Just get out and leave." And almost like an afterthought Isa adds, "and don't come back."

"But I will come back"

"No, you won't."

"I will, and you know it."

Isa's sudden hesitation paints a smirk on Lea's face. But whatever it is that he finds so funny, Isa doesn't, and the mage is having none of that. "I'll kill you."

The smirk intensifies. "No, you won't," Lea repeats playfully at the same pace Isa had said it to drive the point home, and he can't help snickering at the mage's offended pout and grunt. It's so nice to see him without the hood so often. It's so nice to be able to take in all of Isa's expressions, and just to see his face in general. It gives Lea someone to connect with, he tells himself every time he questions himself on this.

The pout soon turns into a full frown, and Isa averts his entire face away from the redhead. He sets the hood over his face again -- _'Spoke too soon,'_ Lea thinks -- clasping his hands behind his back in a way that makes him look almost regal.

"Just leave, please."

For some reason the air around the two men shifts. There's no aggression or mischief in the room anymore, just a lonesome air of melancholy and sadness that prompts a small, barely noticeable snowfall within the room. Lea blinks, the cockiness suddenly gone; this is so deeply confusing, and yet intriguing.

A million questions fly into his mind at that very moment. It's a pain to get his curiosity under control and not do anything, but in the end Lea just shrugs it off; he just really, really shouldn't be pushing his luck now. So in the end he decides to leave before the atmosphere shifts, but not without promising himself to come back one day and find out what it was that triggered this, no matter how long it takes.

It takes him a tremendous amount of effort to turn around and leave, but in the end he forces himself, and the rest of the steps come easier. Behind him he hears something, but he shrugs it off, doesn't stop until he's back home safely and half lying, half explaining his absence to everyone who cared enough to worry. It's probably just a hopeful mind making things up anyway.


	3. Melting Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally uploaded the wrong chapter yesterday and only realized it today. How embarrassing!! So here; you get two chapters in one go.

It's common knowledge that hunting gets easier with the pass of the seasons. Lea catches better game during spring, and even finds himself enjoying the scenery a whole lot more.

He just hates the winter, which suits him just fine seeing as how the first days of Spring are already here anyway. The awful snow has melted almost completely by the time he's back outside, revealing the greenery and the flowers that begin to bloom ever so slowly, almost shily. A small river carefully unfreezing itself, the animals foolish enough to come out while the redheaded hunter preys and stalks them.

Lea would feel bad for them if he didn't need to eat so desperately. Really, he swears, but he needs to feed himself if he wants to keep living, so he can't help celebrating a little when an arrow pierces a buck's neck almost cleanly.

Of course it runs away, but it's not going to last long with such an injury.

The redhead quickly follows the animal, shooting it a few more times so it can just fall over and die already, damn it, what's taking so goddamn long? Lea of course finds it to be quite the happy coincidence when it runs towards the deepest parts of the woods, and he gleefully follows after, even when he knows that he'll soon have to walk the rest of the way carrying it.

It's funny how with the coming of spring these woods don't look as uninviting and intimidating as they did in the winter. But maybe that's just because the hunter has taken the same path so many times before, making it into a normal part of his life. The creepy-looking trees from the first visit don't look quite so scary anymore, just silly now that Lea takes a better look at them.

The usual trip to the mansion also seems shorter as he continues on, and soon enough he's standing in front of the gates and the dead buck, marvelling at how different everything looks during spring. The grass, the greenery... there's even a few flowers growing here and there, a few vines growing over the walls as well.

It's quite the beautiful view, to be quite honest.

He skips ahead, opens the gate, drags the buck into the main field and right up to Isa's door. He supposes he should probably cut it up and just take the meat inside... but before that he needs permission.

He doesn't really. He just likes to pretend.

"Hey, Is-- sir! Mind if I come in?"

"You're already in," comes a voice from the hallway, "And I can tell that you've no intention to get out."

The familiar voice makes him smile; it's the first time Isa's ever greeted him, if you can count this as a greeting. "You know me so well. Now can I come in and make something to eat because I don't know about you but I am _starving._ "

Lea doesn't wait for an answer. He just grins, inviting himself in, and as expected, Isa doesn't really care.

* * *

"Geez, how could you leave the kitchen freeze over again?"

"If you have somehow not yet noticed, I can't really help it."

"But you could, oh, I don't know, thaw it or something. You knew I was coming over."

"I really wanted to believe that you would not."

Their trip to the kitchen is a short one, filled with idle chat from Lea and short, sarcastic replies from Isa. Despite the mage's icy behaviour (Lea supresses a giggle at his joke), he doesn't seem too hostile, too against the redhead's presence to throw him out again. He just follows along, moving closer to Lea as they venture further into the mansion.

Isa's face is once again covered under the hood. All Lea can see is his mouth, and the way it's pressed into a flat line convinces him that the only reason Isa's so close is because he still doesn't trust him. They cross the kitchen doors when Lea decides to point it out. "You're awful close," he says, "Are you going to be watching me cook over my shoulder too?"

"Don't be so dramatic," Isa scoffs. He sits by the same counter he did the first time he'd accompanied Lea to cook. The blue haired mage exhales, and if Lea's eyes aren't failing him, he looks tired, perhaps exhausted. What's with that?

After a few seconds of staring Lea decides to shrug it off and get to work while he speaks. "So, how's the mansion holding up?"

"Still empty and covered in ice."

"Even during spring, huh? That's impressive." Lea rolls his eyes. Isa's obviously trying to avoid conversation as much as possible, but the hunter is so stubborn that he knows it won't work. "How do you manage to keep it up even when it's already warmer outside?"

Isa tries his damn hardest at looking both bored and regal and almost succeeds. "I don't," he says as loudly as he can, enough for his words to echo through the room. Lea rolls his eyes yet again. "It just happens. And if I make it go away it just comes back anyway, so why bother?"

"You're awfully apathetic about your own power."

"And you're awfully curious," Isa delivers his words with all the force and sharpness he can to get the redhead to shut up. Lea guesses that Isa just wants to spend the entire visit in silence again, only talking when necessary, or when he feels like it... but where's the fun in that?

Still, Lea has come this far to want to screw it up by pushing Isa's patience beyond its limits. The mage may allow him to enter his mansion now, but he's not about to let him go exploring his hallways and rooms just like that, or let him talk too much for that matter. Lea doesn't even think he'll be allowed to stay past cooking and eating... So the redhead decides to shut up indeed and get back to work.

Time passes as Lea cooks. The silence makes itself comfortable in the entire room, and it calms Isa so much that Lea's surprised when he doesn't comment on the fire, or even on the smell. The last time he'd been here doing this Isa had left, despite his own strict rules of the hunter always being under his watch and always asking permission to go somewhere within the mansion.

And that's another thing Lea's curious about. Of course he is. An ice mage mysteriously living alone in what seems to be an abandoned mansion in the middle of the deepest, unvisited part of the woods, one who is always contradicting himself and is also, overall, extremely difficult to read. What's not to find interesting about such a description? About Isa's background, about the mansion's?

There are too many questions and not enough answers.

The redhead spends his time pondering and wondering, so deep into his own mind that, at one point, his body and mind disconnect and he begins to move by memory. He's too busy thinking to pay attention to the food, but somehow he manages to not ruin it. It's a little something he's already grown used to with all the things he has to take care of and do all the time, which isn't actually a lot and the thing is that, really, he's just easily distracted.

"You're humming," comes a voice from behind him. Lea, once again, is startled by the suddenness of Isa speaking, and so he jumps with a yelp.

He turns around to stare at him with confusion. "What?"

"You were humming just now." Isa's eyes are still under the hood, but Lea can tell the man is amused just by hearing his voice and looking at his barely-there smirk. "What, did you not notice?"

"Uh. No, not really."

"Is that so..."

"What, 's there some problem with me humming?" Lea raises an eyebrow half in defiance and half in embarrassment. He hopes, prays, even, that Isa won't notice the former, much less comment on it.

Suddenly Isa smiles, and Lea's stunned into silence. "You did not notice, so you were thinking about something." Isa turns his head to face Lea, and even with the hood on he still looks mischievous enough to send shivers down the redhead's spine. "What is it?"

It's rare enough to have Isa initiate a conversation, but having him smile is definitely even rarer. Even after it's gone Lea can't help staring stupidly at him for a long time, flushing, and he would probably continue if it weren't for the sudden burnt smell coming from the food. He yelps again, turning around to quickly save his cooking and, after a load of trouble, succeeding.

"That was close," he whispers. Then he turns back around to see Isa making a disgusted face. Probably the smell, he guesses, but the smile was definitely a lot better. "Hey," Lea pouts, "next time you see my food burning, how about you tell me? That might save me a huge scare."

"Oh, I am sorry for your carelessness," Isa says, voice dripping with bitter sarcasm. "Just serve the food and then leave."

This is probably the most bizarre thing about Isa. First he's serious and avoidant. Then he's smiling, teasing, looking as though he's enjoying himself. And then suddenly he's cold again, seemingly exhausted and unable to put up with any more of Lea's antics.

But there's not much that he can do about it, so despite it all Lea obeys; he sets the table next room and sits down. He's surprised he's even allowed to stay to eat his own food. They eat quietly, neither looking at each other, with both probably spending more time in their minds than in the actual scene. The air is overwhelmingly awkward and stressful for Lea, and while he wonders what it feels like for Isa, he doesn't dare ask, or even set his eyes on him.

He eats quickly enough to finish before the mage. Lea gets up, thanks Isa out of politeness, and gets out of the mansion as fast as he can with the rest of his own food to cook in his house. He makes the trip back home, not understanding where the sudden feeling of anxiousness even came from.

* * *

He comes back some other day when what he's had to eat runs out and a much dreaded hunting day rolls up once again. Lea does everything he can to avoid his fate; he purposely arrives at the mansion late, takes his time inspecting the outer wall to see _where_ he'll climb this time, then slowly makes his way from the front yard to the main door.

Once there he hesitates. Just what the hell is he doing here? It doesn't seem as if Isa even wants him here anymore, and for some reason he's nervous, and for once, afraid for himself. But at the same time, he's made a deal... and he's just not one to turn back on his word.

How inconvinient it is to be so honest at heart.

Sighing, Lea goes inside without even calling out at the door. He's uncharacteristically silent, moving through hallways like a shadow not wanting to be found. He does not wish to make himself known in any way, and so he does.

By the time he gets to the kitchen he's already lost his mind in regrets, so he starts his work immediately, knowing that the earlier he begins, the earlier he will leave. His movements are fast. Lea, for once, is not enchanted by the many questions surrounding the mansion-- he's too busy concentrating on the food, timing himself, making sure to be quiet and--

"You."

It's the third time that Isa startles him so, but now Lea doesn't jump; he just drops a plate and flinches when he hears the loud crash. Time passes him by so slowly he can't believe it. It doesn't help how he's closed his eyes, and he doesn't dare open them or turn around to face a man whom he's still too anxious to look at.

Isa doesn't waste any time playing silly games of avoidance this time. "When did you get here?" he says, his voice sounding low and condescending enough to earn another flinch from Lea.

Getting himself to talk is the hardest thing he has ever done, but somehow Lea manages. "Uh, a while ago, I suppose," the redhead mumbles. He carefully goes back to cooking despite feeling terribly tense, his movements slow and clumsy and he curses himself for how obvious he's being, for how he can feel the mage's angry eyes bore holes into his back. "I'm just here to do my thing. I'll be out in a minute or two."

There's no response from Isa for a few seconds. Lea wonders if maybe the man is judging him silently, perhaps preparing some sort of biting comment about how he should get out, and how their little deal is already over...

A strange wheezing sound catches his attention and snaps him out of his own thoughts. Lea quickly turns around, the lack of any commentary suddenly turning into something that causes even more anxiety. The redhead sees Isa, slouching over and holding his head with one hand, apparently in a lot of pain.

"Isa!" Lea shouts worriedly, quickly approaching the mage, but when he hears a growl from the other he stops immediately and backs off as slowly as he can. His eyes lower to the ground and he sees the spot where Isa is standing on freeze over, though the process is rather slow compared to other times Isa's frozen something.

Something is horribly wrong here. The mage's breathing is harsh, and it sounds exhausted when he speaks. " _Don't_ say my name," he whispers a threat, and suddenly Lea's anxiety and nervousness finally has a reason to be there. "I'll kill you the next time you _dare_ utter it!"

Lea gulps. He's almost panicking, but not quite. He raises both hands in an all-familiar peaceful gesture. "Hey, I'm sorry," he begins slowly and carefully as he watches Isa's movements for any sign of danger. "It just slipped out. I won't say it again, I promise."

"Liar," comes Isa's ragged voice. "You are such a liar. You say you won't do something and then you do it anyway. Every. Single. Time." Isa's mouth, the only visible part of his face, contorts into a sneer. He still manages to appear threatening despite looking like he's fighting to keep his footing, with only one hand in stance to attack while the other holds his hooded head.

The redhead frowns. He can't understand where all this aggression came from. Lea had never been in a scene like this one since the first days he visited, or the first days of his stay when he had broken his arm. All in all, he'd thought that maybe Isa was finally starting to get used to him, maybe even warm up to him...

It was his mistake, he guesses.

Isa's hold on his head tightens until he's pulling on the hood with both hands, but he doesn't drop it from his face. He groans, the sound growing in volume until it becomes an animalistic roar tangled with human words. "You should never have come back!" he shouts, and the ground explodes in icy spikes shooting up rapidly towards Lea.

The hunter doesn't expect the attack. He hasn't seen this since the beginning of his meetings with the mage, so he's slow; Lea jumps out of the way just a little too late, and his left hand receives a cut just from brushing against the sharp ice. He screams, holding it and watching as the warm blood oozes out.

And that's it. That's all it takes. When Lea looks back at Isa, who stands still staring directly back at him, he feels all the anger and frustration that built up in his chest explode like a volcano erupting. "What is your problem?!" he yells, "You're unpredictable! One moment you're fine with me being around and the next you can't even seem to stand me, so you end up pulling stunts like these! What gives?!"

Isa, for some reason, takes a few seconds to recover his voice, slowly balling his hands into fists as his suddenly surprised face contorts into a hateful grimace. "It's because you're so damn _stubborn!_ Always pushing to see more, know more, getting on my nerves. Sometimes I wonder why I didn't kill you, why I even let you come in here!"

"You keep going on and on about how I should be dead..." Lea whispers, lowers his head, grits his teeth. He can't believe how much the words sting... but more than that, they make him angry. Lea's tired of hearing the same damn things over and over, so by the time he raises his head back up to look at Isa, he makes sure his face portrays all of the anger he feels.

His scowl, the sneer he wears, it all seems to shock Isa into silence, and he watches his expression falter. "Then why don't you just kill me now, huh?!" When the mage's mouth becomes a flat line and doesn't respond, he continues, "I'll keep coming back no matter what you say. It's in my veins; I'm an idiot who doesn't know when to stop doing something stupid until it's too late. Even after this I will still come back, _and you know it._ "

The two men continue staring at each other. For some reason, Lea feels his scowl loosen up, and his voice slowly drops some of the aggression within it. He's tired. "If you really want me gone, forever, you will have to kill me," he says as softly as he can, trying to indicate that he's no longer a threat. He stands tall, dropping his bloodied hand to his side, listening to the loud sound of blood dripping to the floor in this tense silence and accepting the fate he's decided on.

Somehow that makes Isa grit his teeth in an emotion unreadable to Lea. The harsh breathing is still there, and it sounds as though it gets harsher and harsher as time passes, almost as if he's struggling to let the oxygen reach his lungs. Isa dosn't move, keeps looking at Lea from under his hood, and once more the redhead wonders just what it is that is going on in that head of his, what is--

He doesn't even have the time to finish that thought when Isa suddenly doubles over, grunting in what Lea guesses is more pain. The hunter rushes over to the mage, forgetting immediately both the argument and the pain on his own left hand.

For the first time since their first meeting, Lea touches Isa. He sets a hand on his back in a comforting way, and is relieved when the mage doesn't do anything to shake him off. Isa is, unsurprisingly, cold to the touch, but there's something about the man's temperature that worries Lea; he'd expected a man in control of ice, who can freeze the ground he steps on without even thinking about it, to be a lot colder.

Not understanding what that means, he simply decides to ask the other for what is wrong. "Idiot," Isa chokes out, sounding tired. He doesn't speak again for a few seconds until he absently whispers something out.

"It's so warm..."

And just like that it clicks. What happens to ice, when it's subjected to warmth? Suddenly Isa's aversion to fire isn't that weird to Lea anymore, and suddenly the mildly cold temperature of the other's body is a lot more worrying. He almost feels stupid for not making the connection earlier.

Lea frowns in concern. "Hold on, I've got you," he whispers, gently helping Isa sit against the wall. It surprises him when the other doesn't seem to mind how close he is, but maybe he just can't react accordingly right now. Still, guessing that maybe sharing body heat isn't the best thing to do, Lea quickly removes himself from Isa's personal space.

The mage remains unmoving and quiet. The only clue as to him not being dead that Lea has is his slow, deep breathing. Maybe he's gone unconscious for a bit. That's strange, but Lea doesn't blame him. He looks so weak and tired already; he deserves the rest. When Isa suddenly takes in a deep breath the redhead sighs in relief, and smiles when Isa's attention falls back on him.

There's a moment of silence between them as they both register and digest the current chain of events. It's particularly harder for Isa, but eventually he just sighs. "I'd like for you to leave now," he whispers, taking his time as if speaking were the hardest thing in the world to do.

"What? No way," Lea immediately protests. "I just saw you almost pass out. Or maybe you did pass out, but there's no way I'm leaving you alone after that."

"Just leave." The mage's request doesn't have as much power when he barely breathes it out. He can't even hide his flinch at the weakness of his own voice, so in an attempt to cover it up he quickly adds, "And treat that damn hand of yours. You're bleeding all over my floor."

Even though the wound still hurts, even though they've just had a fight bad enough to get him injured, and even though he feels a considerable amount of betrayal at Isa's lack of trust on him, Lea can't help laughing. "Excuse me!" he says once he's calmer, "You're the one who did this!"

And Isa doesn't have anything to say for that. He just grumbles like a grounded child, and even pouts like one. They spend another stretch of time in silence, and Lea wonders for a second if it isn't warm under the hood. He knows that Isa would never take it off willingly in front of him, though, but still, it's not a good idea to keep his head under the fabric's warmth so long.

Isa suddenly clearing his throat snaps him out of his thoughts. "I do believe you were cooking," he comments, voice strong once more. He slowly tries to stand up while Lea looks back at the stove, groaning, but happy that he didn't put anything in the fire yet before all of this.

He sighs. "Do you still want me to finish that?"

Lea makes his way to the food, ready to pick it up and store it and leave. The mage takes his time to think bfore he speaks and interrupts him.

"It's still better than soup, I suppose."

That makes Lea laugh again.

* * *

"I'll be coming back every now and then to cook and check up on you."

"Your only business here is to cook and leave."

"Well, too bad, but I'm not turning a blind eye to sickness."

"I am not sick."

"You look like you are. And you act like it too, so no excuses. I'm coming back."

Isa's mouth sets into a tight line once again before he sighs, slumps his shoulders, and shakes his head while he speaks. "No matter what I say you just won't listen, and you'll come back anyway... am I correct?"

Lea smirks. "You're finally understanding."

A silence stretches between the two as they exchange looks. Unreadable in Isa's case, because of the hood, amused in Lea's, but both defiant, trying to take the lead of this stubborn staring contest to have the final say in the matter. It's something that Lea enjoys for some reason; it just feels so normal, and he can't help the smile that spreads to replace the smirk on his face. This time for sure he can say that he enjoys simply being around the mage.

It isn't long until Isa's entire being relaxes into a resigned, tired sigh, thus breaking the moment and reminding Lea of what's happening again. "Fine," Isa drags out the word so his annoyance is as evident as the day's sunlight. "Do what you damn please."

Lea's learned that's Isa's way of saying "be my guest" to him.

* * *

Days pass, rolling onto themselves as Spring quickly moves through time's path. Lea never fails to appear every hunting day to Isa, and his selection of animals to bring for cooking goes from small to big. But regardless of size he always cooks them just right, and Isa, after a few days of trying to get him to stop being so uptight about it, finally praises his food.

Sarcastically, of course, but it's something.

Sometimes though, although rare, a day may be particularly unlucky, and Lea would arrive empty-handed, head hung low and a shamed laugh in his mouth to try and lighten the mood. Yet despite his embarrassment at being unable to provide as per their agreement, Isa always lets him out free, sends him back home, even if he's a little hesitant before it finally comes to him naturally. It goes on in such ways until one day the mage stops him before he leaves and asks him, almost shyly, to help him brew tea.

"I am... becoming weak, is all," he excuses himself.

And so a new tradition between them is born. With little talk, the two grow close simply by sharing their silence, and suddenly Lea realizes that he can use the gift of patience somewhere other than in the wild as he hunts.

On one day, they decide to drink tea together instead of having Lea just brew it and then leave. The redhead, at first, is hesitant about allowing himself to the drink, but after a while he sighs. He picks up the cup and stirs it around to--

"What are you doing, stirring your tea so loudly?"

Lea immediately stops what he's doing to stare up at Isa. "What?"

"You are not supposed to let the spoon touch the sides of the cup. And don't cradle the cup with your fingers!" Isa lightly slaps Lea's hand holding the cup to get him to put it down. Lea jumps a little-- Isa touching him in small ways has become more and more common, but he can never get used to it, let alone how cold he is. "Hasn't anyone taught you any manners?"

"There are manners specifically for drinking tea?"

Isa rolls his eyes, and Lea's grateful for the hood being off for today; his expressions have a lot more strength when his whole face can be seen. "There are manners for all kinds of things," he says, "What kind of world would this be if there weren't any?"

Slowly, the redhead pieces together bits and pieces of the mansion's history, and the first thing is the mage's tendency to talk and behave like nobility. Perhaps Isa, before, was actually a noble. Maybe even a royal of sorts, one who isolated himself all the way here for reasons still unknown. The way the man presents himself makes Isa intimidating in an authoritative way; he demands respect by simply standing tall and proud.

Because even when he's weakening day by day, even when the man requires more of Lea's assistance to get by, when he starts to rely on the redhead to do certain things, Isa still carries an air of independant strength. Despite the fact that Lea gets to know a more vulnerable side of him, it's still not enough to wipe out the image of the mage summoning icy spikes to threaten Lea with, possibly even kill him.

The hunter lightly mentally shakes his head and sighs. Well, Isa might be ridiculous from time to time, sometimes even confusing and contradicting with himself, but that's part of who he is, Lea guesses. He's not someone to be messed around with, but now that he thinks about it, it's actually strange that Isa allows himself to be so calm with Lea as he explains tea manners and rules in a discreetly delighted manner, as he allows the redhead to help him with something as mundane as tea and even allows him to stay over to drink it with him.

But perhaps that's just the way things are supposed to go now. By allowing Isa to do what he wants without questioning him, without pressuring him, the mage slowly unfolds himself and shows Lea bits and pieces of himself and his home.

It's perfect.

Lea smiles and rests his chin on his open palm, staring at Isa stir a cup just the right way. The mage doesn't notice, too lost in his own words to even care, and to be honest that's fine by Lea.


	4. Frozen Droplets Of Rain

By the time Summer rolls in Isa's already weakening to dangerous levels, and Lea's time spent in the mansion doubles just to make sure that he's okay.

The concern began to nestle itself into Lea's being when one day the blue haired man suddenly closed his eyes in the middle of a conversation, head lolling to one side as he seemingly went to sleep. Lea had found it strange at first, but when the event kept repeating itself again and again over the course of the week, Lea became exceedingly worried. Even to this day the mage falls asleep at random moments, sometimes in the middle of doing something important. Lea thinks it a miracle that he hasn't just passed out in the middle of a hallway just yet.

And though Isa keeps denying anything, though he continues to brush away the events and telling Lea to stop worrying so much, to stop meddling where he shouldn't, the redhead can't help but disobey once again just to help the mage.

"It's too late for me to back out now," he laughs every time.

Over time Lea realizes that he doesn't mind being so careful and vigilant with Isa, so long as it's not over his own life, but the mage's. Despite the other's needy habits that only grow in number as he grows weaker with the heat, Lea doesn't care about going the extra mile to help. He doesn't know why, but for some reason he's not complaining either.

Walking through the woods after a long hunting day has the redhead once again question the concern he feels deep within his gut. It's never enough to get him to hurry and fret too much over Isa, but it's never too little to get him to abandon him even for one day. Lea, having been a lone hunter for so long, doesn't really know how to react to feeling like he cares about someone else enough to bring them food every day amongst other things.

But today is different. Today Lea makes his way to the mansion in a bit of a hurry, only stopping himself from running because he can't get out of his own head and stop thinking so hard about everything. He makes his way through the dark woods, absently exploring his thoughts and trying to understand just why it is that taking care of Isa has become one of his main priorities, and why the hell does he care so much about that? He's just doing the right thing. He's following through with a deal that he made and can't really stop until Isa himself tells him to go away. But then why...

Lea arrives to the clearing before Isa's mansion earlier than he'd intended to. It's way past midday already. He'll have to hurry if he wants to get the food done before it's too late to call it lunch anymore. Lea slowly walks over to the gates and--

He stops. Lea's whole body immediately goes into alarm mode, tensing as his breathing momentarily hitches. Something-- something is wrong. Horribly wrong, terrifyingly so.

The gates. The gates are never open. Approaching them reveals that they've been forced open as well. "Oh no," Lea mutters between clenched teeth as he crouches to sneak into the building, all previous thoughts suddenly forgotten just to highlight Isa's moments of extreme weakness in Lea's memory.

He sneaks into the mansion slowly, trying not to be detected by whoever it is that's decided breaking into this mansion was a good idea. Lea struggles with going from wanting to kill anyone who dared trespass and fearing whatever it is that he'll find the deeper he goes into the building. Maybe they're just travelers. Maybe Isa already scared them away. Maybe--

He stops again, eyes going wide. Oh god, Isa. Isa and his god damn weakness during warm months. What if he passes out in the middle of a--

Screw sneaking. Lea immediately gets up and rushes into the mansion, barely restraining himself from yelling out to find Isa as quickly as possible. He gets a weapon ready, any weapon, and he mutters something absently when the best thing he has is his hunting sword, but decides to go for the bow just in case he has to think fast.

He's almost into the ballroom he hears a scream. He stops for a few seconds, processing it until he realizes it's not Isa's, but someone else's. Lea hides against the wall and peeks into the room as quickly as he can, but as silently and carefully as possible so as to not be detected.

What he sees surprises him, but worries him all the same. He sees Isa, hood over his face, holding off against a man wielding a sword and looking as though he wants nothing but to see him dead. Quite a distance from them lies a man over a pool of his own blood, stabbed by one of Isa's spikes and probably already dead. Another close look at Isa reveals him panting, trembling, struggling to keep conscious and to stand strong. Lea only knows that because he's seen the signs. He already knows them all too well.

The intruder yells out a curse and rushes at Isa. The mage puts all the effort in the world into stepping away, raising an ice shield to defend himself while he gathers the strength to counter-attack. But the ice is too weak and breaks with a few kicks from the thief, and Isa panics and falls over. Lea can't stand it any longer; it's now or never. He steps into the room and readies an arrow, immediately getting the trespasser to stop his slow advance towards the ice mage when the arrow lodges itself into his back.

"Hey!" Lea calls over the thief's screaming as he readies yet another arrow. "Over here, idiot!"

As soon as the man turns around Lea shoots. The arrow flies through the air and he holds his breath, not daring to take his eyes off it until it pierces right through the thief's forehead, instantly killing him.

A loud thud resonates through the whole room, and for a moment Lea doesn't dare move, doesn't dare breathe or think or do anything at all until the world reassembles itself around him... and yet it only focuses on one thing. Lea has just killed a man. He takes his time to let that fact sink in-- a man, not an animal. A thief, dead by one of his own arrows. Lying there in front of him with blood slowly oozing from his head.

The scene replays itself over and over in Lea's head. He cannot believe it. He drops the bow as he continues to stare at the scene until Isa comes back into focus. "Isa!" he yells, running to the man still sitting on the floor and failing to pick himself up.

"You," Isa whispers. The hood came off the moment he fell, and he looks almost on the verge of passing out, weak, panting and struggling to keep his eyes open. His voice sounds tired and small when Lea reaches him. The redhead doesn't think, doesn't hear whatever it is that Isa says when he wraps his arms around him, pulling Isa into a tight hug and repressing his own shuddering at the cold.

"Heaven's sake, I thought I wouldn't make it," Lea whispers shakily. "I thought I wouldn't make it. I thought the shot wouldn't make it. Oh god, I thought I wouldn't make it."

"I could've taken him..." Isa's tired voice is only audible because of how close he is.

Lea's grip on Isa tightens at his words. "No, you couldn't!" he yells, feeling angry and scared and a thousand other things at the same time that he doesn't even understand. "Must I remind you of how weak you are on warm days?! Of how weak you are _right now?!_ One swing of that sword and you could've-- you could've..."

Silence falls upon them, with Lea holding Isa close and the mage barely holding onto the conscious world. It doesn't take long until Isa's body goes limp, his deep breathing calming Lea just a little; at least someone is somewhat relaxed after all this mess.

Lea thinks hard. It's not a good idea to simply sit here in the middle of the same room where two dead bodies are currently hanging around. And besides, Isa would probably like being in a more comfortable place instead. Still holding onto him, Lea slowly picks the mage up until he's carrying him in his arms, wondering just where he should go now.

Isa's room? Lea knows of its exitence, but its location is currently unknown to him and he doesn't think the blue haired would appreciate him invading his personal space. Living room? Still not a good enough place to have someone rest after using up their energy with their magic. So that leaves the redhead with one final, quite familiar option.

Surprisingly the mage isn't as heavy as Lea thought he'd be. Carrying him around the hallways and stairways of the mansion doesn't prove tiring to Lea, and he spends most of the walk to his destination thinking, buried deep in his mind and trying not to focus on his growing worry and other feelings he assumes are related to anxiety.

When he arrives Lea can't help snickering. To take the weakened mage to the same room he'd occupied during his stay as an injured guest is just that funny to him. After that Lea doesn't waste time, setting the ice mage on the bed and removing all blankets and pillows and other things that might warm Isa. He even opens the windows and the balcony doors to let what little air there is sneak inside. Lea tries to think of what else he can do to help Isa cool down, what other things he should do, what--

A whine from behind him stops him in his tracks, and Lea turns around immediately to see Isa holding a hand to his head, trying to alleviate the pain.

"Where... where am I?"

Lea is kneeling by his side before Isa even has the time to get up or recognize his whereabouts. "Easy there," he whispers, setting a hand to prevent the mage from sitting up. "Slow down, you're still weak."

"You..." Isa's voice is still weak and small, but it doesn't sound as tired as it did before. "Did you bring me here?"

Lea nods. "I thought you'd be more comfortable on a bed than on the floor."

"I was not... on the floor, though. If I remember correctly, you--"

"Hey, there's no need for that now," Lea interrupts and covers for himself. He anxiously hopes that Isa won't go back to it when he continues, "More importantly, how are you feeling?"

Isa looks at him for a while, trying to decipher something that Lea's set on never letting him recall. Finally, he gives up and sighs. "Terrible."

"Then you should probably sleep for now," Lea nods and slowly gets up, checking his quiver and sword. "I'll keep watch for a few hours just in case anyone else shows up. You stay here and rest, I'll handle this."

"No," Isa's voice is strong for that split second of the word. He reaches out for Lea's sleeve to stop him in his tracks and frowns. "This is my home and I must protect it myself. You have nothing to do here. You are dismissed."

"Are you kidding me? Don't go pulling the authoritative act now that you can't even get up." Lea huffs, rolls his eyes and gently removes Isa's barely cold hand from his sleeve. "I can take care of this. You can yell at me all you want when I come back, but for now I've got to do this."

They share a moment of silence as they stare at each other in yet another battle for the last word in the argument, and once again Lea's stubborn nature wins over Isa's. The man is too tired to argue it seems, and he simply relaxes into the mattress with a defeated sigh. "Just one thing," he mumbles barely loud enough for Lea to hear.

Lea shrugs. "What is it?"

"I'm going to need a name to curse while I am here."

The redhead blinks. He takes a minute to digest Isa's words and then he blinks again. The mage, the one person he's known and visited for so long, is finally asking for Lea's name. He hadn't even realized that Isa didn't know his name. After the next and final blink Lea begins to smile, and he laughs contently as he sets a hand over the room's doorknob, ready to leave.

"It's Lea," he says, and then he leaves the mage just as he tests the name out with his own vocal cords for the first time. It sends shivers down his spine, and Lea spends the rest of the evening wondering just why.

* * *

After revealing his name the next times that Lea comes back to the mansion immediately feel different. The first change to come is Isa's hood; the mage removes it from his face more often, mostly because it's too warm under it and Isa cannot risk getting warmer than his body can allow.

And that's another thing. As Summer continues Isa's condition worsens, and sometimes he'll spend days asleep on the guest room bed, unmoving, waking up only to eat. As a result the redhead's visits become longer and longer, and on a few occasions, when the air around him fills him with uneasiness and worry, he'll even stay over for the night.

The people back at home have long since stopped questioning Lea's travelling habits and where it is that he disappears to so often. Lea has even made it into a habit to slowly but surely bring over things from his home to Isa's mansion. "Just to facilitate things around here," he'll say, and then suddenly the next day he'll appear with bags of his own clothes asking where it is that he can stuff them into.

Isa is not an idiot. He knows what he's doing, but it's not like he can do much about it, or like he cares enough to stop it.

Overall Summer is as uneventful as it can get, with Isa sleeping through most of it and Lea trying to make sure he's at least taken care of. Though sometimes the mage will stay awake for more than an hour and engage Lea in conversation, those moments are rare, and the two men don't usually talk about anything important so as to ease the tense air from both their shoulders.

During one of their conversations the subject of tea is brought up again, and somehow it ends with Isa trying to teach the hunter the basics of tea-time manners once more.

"There are several things to always remember when it comes to tea-time," Isa says, looking at Lea as though he expects him to memorize it quickly and be a good student. "For example, you must always keep your tea cup and saucer close together. Do not separate them more than twelve inches apart."

Lea blinks. "What? That's ridiculous!"

Isa glares at him and he immediately shuts up. "Always hold your saucer, with the teacup, in the palm of your hand at waist level," he demonstrates as he continues talking, "and sip silently. There must be no noise."

The blue haired man takes a sip of his own tea in a manner that makes him look graceful and almost regal. Lea quickly imitates him, never taking his eyes off him just to make sure that he's doing it just right. When Isa puts down his cup again he smiles almost happily... and then frowns deeply when his eyes set back on Lea.

He lightly slaps his hand to get him to put down the cup again, and Lea promptly whines. "Do not stick out your pinky finger!" Isa commands, "It is rude and should never be done. Remember that."

"Geez, sorry for not knowing," Lea mumbles under his breath. "This is so stupid. Why do I have to do this again?"

"Because you are the only one around I can share tea time with," Isa says. He huffs and sits back on the bed's frame, carefully settling the cup on his leg so as to not let anything spill out. "Honestly," he adds, "tea is one of life's greatest joys. I cannot remember the last time I had the chance to drink tea like this."

That catches Lea off guard. The blue haired man seems lost in thought for a moment, staring absently at the teacup with a melancholic smile. The more days that pass, the more Isa smiles, and while it is a nice sight for Lea, he can't ignore the way each of Isa's expressions has a story behind them, even if it's just a small one.

He decides to go for it. "So," he begins. "You used to have tea a lot, then?"

"Oh, plenty." Isa lifts his gaze to stare at the ceiling without really focusing his eyes anywhere. "Afternoon tea was the best part of the day. I'd typically sit in the garden to have some and read a book..."

Slowly, Isa begins to reveal even more, important bits and details of his life in the mansion. Slowly, by piecing all the parts together, Lea realizes that there really was a time when Isa didn't have any powers over ice, when he lived a normal life as someone of importance, if his words and actions and the overall look of his mansion are anything to go by. Now the only questions left are... since when? And why?

But that's okay. All in due time, Lea thinks. And it seems as though the more time that passes, the more Isa allows himself to relax and become a little more open with Lea, at least enough to share anecdotes and stories behind some of his paintings and books. Lea is absolutely delighted-- there's nothing better than months of patience and waiting finally paying off.

And so the days of Summer slowly become Autumn days, gone by almost unnoticed by the pair of men as they bond over trivial things and Lea's not so very subtle invasion of Isa's mansion. By the time the night air gets chilly again his belonging are already half here, half at his own house. Lea would be ashamed of himself if it weren't for the reason behind his little move.

"One day you'll have to get that out of here," Isa says every time the subject's brought back up.

"One day, but not today," Lea replies every time with a smile on his face.

The chillier the nights become, the stronger Isa feels. Eventually the man is once again able to get up and wander his hallways and rooms freely, Lea close behind to make him company and help him should the temperature rise at any moment. The transition of seasons tends to be a little bumpy, and it never hurts to be too careful anyway.

Isa doesn't care. He walks around his mansion restoring some of the ice lost to the heat as he passes by. Maybe it'll be gone by tomorrow again, maybe not, but regardless of that Isa continues to try and freeze his home once again.

The reason why is unknown until the mage reveals it to Lea himself. On one cold night, during a stroll through the library, Isa stops in front of an extremely badly kept painting of someone whose face is now lost to time. The blue haired sets a hand on the frame, and on cue, it is slowly covered with a thin layer of ice.

He frowns. "The ice is all I've known for so long," he mumbles, and Lea, standing behind him with a book in hand that he can't really read, pretends not to listen in. He already knows that Isa tends to talk to himself anyway, and the best way to get information is to let him speak, be himself. "I guess," Isa continues, "I just feel safer within ice than I do anywhere else."

When he finishes freezing over the portrait Isa walks off somewhere else looking gloomy. Lea decides to play the guessing game with himself, though by this point, he thinks maybe he's just stating the facts; Isa has never stepped outside, probably since he first had control of ice.

Lea sighs. The questions are endless, and the answers are limited. But he supposes he can wait; he's already waited this long, and the rewards of patience have never been sweeter.

* * *

"Good afternoon, your icy-ness."

"You are hilarious."

"Of course I am." Lea walks over and sits by the fireplace of the guest room, Isa's current room until he can go back to his own during Winter. It's already halfway through Autumn now, and the way things are looking Isa won't be needing special care for much longer.

Lea smiles at the mage when he walks from standing by the window and towards him. "You look better," he says.

Isa snorts. "Feel better, even. I am glad that Summer's finally gone."

"Me too. It was about time, eh?" Lea grins up at Isa when he stops and stands right in front of him. The mage's face is once again uncovered; it's not like Isa cares that much about hiding himself anymore. Despite Lea's new experience on his expressions the mage's face looks unreadable, and Lea tilts his head at him, raising an eyebrow to try and get him to talk. It doesn't work, so instead he clears his throat and says, "What is it?"

"Come with me."

Lea doesn't have much of a choice. Isa tends to make himself very clear when he wants something done immediately, so the redhead sighs, shrugs, and gets up from his seat to walk behind Isa towards the balcony doors. The mage opens them with ease, and the cold, wet air from outside confuses Lea for a few seconds.

He blinks. "It's raining," he states flatly. Lea steps forward to let a few raindrops fall on his extended hand. "Guess it's finally rain season, huh?"

"Observe."

It's already strange to have Isa take Lea here just to see the rain. It's even stranger to have him show him something, though, so Lea quickly steps away, allowing Isa to reach over outside of the doors. With his hand extended he catches a few raindrops, and the water immediately freezes over in his hand.

It is quite beautiful, in a way, so Lea smiles. When Isa shakes the ice off his hand however Lea doesn't know how to react. The mage points at nothing in particular, concentrating, until finally he stabs his finger nowhere in particular with all the force and confidence in the world, and the moment he does that there is a small sound of something hitting the floor.

Lea looks down to the floor and gasps in surprise. "Seriously?"

There, on the floor, is a single drop of rain completely frozen over. Lea kneels down to the ground and picks it up, carefully so as to not ruin it. It's so cold to the touch that he has to balance it with both hands to not get hurt with the ice. He laughs out loud at his own juggling game with one single drop of rain until Isa snatches it from him.

"Stop that," Isa mumbles, "You will drop it and break it."

The redhead grins. "So I'm guessing this means you're much better now."

"As I said, I feel better. To be able to use my own power only sustains that."

"I see... Does this mean I've got to pack and leave soon?"

Though Lea says such things in a mocking manner, he genuinely wonders if it's about time he left, or if by the time Isa doesn't require his help he'll have to do the trip back home carrying all the things he's already stored in Isa's mansion. But mostly, he wonders what Isa's reaction to the past months will be once he sits down to truly think about them.

Surprisingly Isa doesn't say anything. He stands there, staring at the frozen drop in his hand, lost in his mind as he usually was before Spring came over and ruined that. Shortly after his silence Isa's hand closes over the drop, and he looks up at the rainy sky absently while he speaks.

"Lea," he begins, saying the name as if it's very important and making Lea hold his breath for some stupid, goddamn reason, "will you accompany me for tea today?"

The mage's words are not an answer, but they're enough to get Lea's mind to shut up and appreciate them. "Sure," he shrugs, and the two of them share a smile that eases Lea's worries as soon as it presents itself in Isa's face.

* * *

As time goes by Isa doesn't do as many ice tricks as he did before in the Winter. He'll try to do more when the snow starts to fall, he says, and Lea always tells him he'd love to see them, and finds himself surprised at how sincere he is. While it rains it's easier to spread the ice over the walls and the structure of the mansion, but it's still not enough to get it to look the way it did when Lea first stepped inside the main room; cold, completely frozen over, with the light of day being reflected by the ice.

Still, they try anyway, continuing to spread the cold until it settles. Lea always follows Isa around the mansion as he slowly freezes everything back to its Wintery condition. Isa tells the redhead that he's mostly preparing for the snowy season, so that his home matches perfectly with the weather and he has all the strengths of the snow outside with the ice inside.

Lea shrugs and sighs. To him this mostly means that he'll have to be sure to warm up both inside and outside of the mansion.

Each time Lea asks the mage about his leave, Isa always disregards it by changing the subject. The redhead has trouble understanding just why it is that the mage is so keen on avoiding the matter at hand, but it's not like he's complaining. If anything he's glad to know that his own departure is something that Isa doesn't even want to talk about.

Autumn rolls over without any events save for the few times Lea and Isa talk, Isa using his power on his home and Lea exploring the rooms the mage takes him to. On one of their repeated visits to the library, Isa focuses on freezing over the tables and chairs while Lea helps himself to the books, making sure he asks for permission first. Reading has never been his forte, but maybe if he tries hard enough, he'll find and learn something within these old, torn pages.

And it's in one of those moments, during one of his simple, curious explorations of book after book after book, that Lea absently asks something that he's never thought about asking before. "How old are the books in this section?"

"Over half a century old, at least."

"Ah," Lea chews on his thumb nail as he reads, "Is this one an old journal of some historical person I don't know of then?"

When he's met by silence Lea immediately gets the feeling that he's done something wrong. Tentatively he lowers the book, turns around to find Isa staring at him with wide, fearful eyes that tell Lea that he's stumbled upon something he should definitely not have. Once Isa averts his eyes, the hunter dares take another close look at the book, and this way he realizes it's more along the lines of a diary.

A small, blue diary, torn over by the ages and with multiple papers sticking out of its pages.

He doesn't want to upset the mage any further, so Lea fights off his own growing curiosity and sets the book down. He clears his throat and walks over to him. "Isa," he risks pronouncing the name, "You missed a spot on that table."

Ever since that moment Lea hasn't been able to take that information out of his head. He assumed the book, the diary belonged to Isa, that he most likely keeps his own diaries and journals and other things of the sort stored in the library to pass for normal books. Why he would do that is unknown to Lea, but it's not like he's about to ask about it after that awkward event and the look in Isa's eyes that had managed to freeze him to the core with cold fear that Lea had never felt before from him.

Over half a century old. If that book really did belong to Isa, then how is it possible that it's really that old? The mage doesn't look as old as the books do, nor does he feel _old_...

Lea shakes his head. Now's not the time to focus on such things.

All in due time.


	5. An Open Book

Autumn seems like the slowest possible season of the year, if only just because hunting gets harder when the rainy season drops by. Today Lea clicks his tongue; it's stupid to be out here in the rain, but Isa had actually summoned him the day before, and he doesn't plan on showing up empty-handed for a rare, possibly the first of many other invitations. Hopefully.

When he manages to at least kill an unlucky bird, Lea decides that's enough and sets off for the mansion. He tries to be as careful as he can as he walks through the woods, but the excitement of what it is that awaits for him back at the mansion is a little stronger than his common sense, and once again this year Lea slips, trips, falls over and hurts himself.

Lea stabilizes himself quickly to observe the damage. It's nothing much at first sight; just a few cuts, bruises, nothing too bad unlike the first time... but when the redhead applies pressure to pick himself up he staggers.

He blinks. Lea rests his weight on his right foot and winces. He blinks again, and after a few seconds, he groans.

"I hate my life."

He decides to walk to the mansion even slower, through safer grounds, and by helping himself move with the trees surrounding him. He's not making the same mistakes as before and getting himself hurt worse. Fortunately he was already close to the building, and by the time he makes it to the wall Lea's questioning himself as to why the hell he's doing this again, jumping will only make his ankle worse, he should really head back, and why doesn't Isa at least open the main gates for him by this point? How rude.

But of course his inner monologue doesn't work, and it's by the time he's falling onto the main field'd grass that he tells himself that he's trapped here now, way to go, now he's gotta keep moving and get inside before he freezes to death in the middle of the cold rain. Good job, Lea. The hunter practically stumbles inside when he gets to the main doors, opening them by throwing himself against them and pathetically fumbling with the doorknob, then falling to the floor with a loud thud. He drags himself into the mansion to escape the intensifying rain outside, closing the doors with his unhurt foot and rolling over on his back to rest for a while...

"What are you doing?"

Seems like rest time is over before it even began. Lea whines, cracks open one eye to see Isa standing above him, frown ever present and silently questioning him, if not judging. "Lea," he asks again, and the hunter feels his skin crawl at his own name. "Why are you on the floor?"

"Why not?" The redhead shrugs. "I'm taking a nap."

"You're soaking wet."

"It'll dry out."

"Not on the also wet, cold floor it won't." Isa sighs, then lightly kicks Lea's side with his foot. Lea shudders; even the boot is cold. "Get up. Let's get you somewhere else."

"Uh, about that..." Lea laughs nervously, averting his eyes and folding his arms behind his head to do something with his hands. "I... uh, y'see, I can't really get up."

At first Isa stares at him with an unreadable expression. Then the man looks up at the space in front of him, frowns, and looks back down to Lea. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out so he clears his throat. He tilts his head, the frown intensifying as he speaks.

"What?"

"I hurt my leg getting here," Lea quickly blurts out. He winces when Isa raises both eyebrows in disbelief. "Come on! It's raining outside. Things are slippery!"

Isa rolls his eyes and sighs. "So you intend to spend the afternoon on the floor?"

Lea blinks. "Well, what else can I do?"

"I'll prepare somewhere for you to rest," Isa offers as he walks away. "However," he continues, "I will not be made responsible as to how you get there. Good luck, Lea."

The redhead chokes on his own spit. He rolls on his stomach, holding himself up with his elbows as he makes an attempt to grab the mage's attention again. He fails, of course, so he decides to just speak. "Hey, wait a minute!" he shouts, "You can't just expect me to... I don't know, _crawl_ all the way to the guest room or something!"

Isa stops for a moment, and the hunter thinks that maybe he's considering his words, having mercy and pity on him... but the only reply he has for Lea is to look back at him, smile mischievously, and utter a simple "Oh, yes I do."

"Asshole," Lea whispers in the silence Isa leaves behind.

* * *

It takes him a horrible amount of time to reach the guest room simply by crawling, so halfway through he decides to screw everything and get up. He jumps, hops, staggers all the way to his destination, slowly, until he finally pushes the door open with his weight as he unceremoniously falls onto the carpeted floor.

He groans. Lea rolls onto his back and closes his eyes, covering his face with his hands. "I think I'm going to take that nap now..."

"Oh, I see you've made it."

When Lea hears Isa's voice, his hands come off his face to stare at the mage in disbelief, even if upside down. He's sitting by a fireplace with no fire, reading a book and casually putting all the effort in the world into not looking at the man sprawled out on the floor.

Isa's somewhat modest smirk intensifies when Lea growls at him, and he finally closes the book to set his eyes on his guest. "What's that look for? I prepared you the bed to rest on."

"I hate you so much."

"As do I, Lea. As do I."

Their smiles and smirks give them away.

* * *

Lea's leg isn't as damaged as he thought it was. A few hours of rest and he's good to go again, so long as he doesn't push himself too hard by overdoing the weight he sets on his foot.

By the time he realizes that he's too deep into a session of yet more tea manners to just up and leave, not to mention that the sun is already setting outside, and the temperature is dropping. Lea doesn't think that Isa has anything to show him by now, maybe he forgot, so he plays it safe, pretending to find out over time, casually 'forgetting' he's hurt and getting up as if it was nothing only to find out that, hey, it doesn't hurt at all anymore! Well, maybe just a little bit, but still.

When Lea gets up and walks around, testing out the muscle and the residual pain, Isa gives him a look that the redhead can't quite figure out. He clears his throat to snap him out of it and get his attention. "I could walk home if I'm careful now," he says once Isa's eyes land again on his, and the mage continues to stare at him in a way that makes Lea feel almost uncomfortable. He's about to point it out when Isa suddenly speaks over him, and his voice has a tone of finality and authority to it that Lea's very familiar with.

"Stay here tonight."

Lea blinks twice. "What?"

"The rain is still going outside. It's too strong, and it will probably continue raining until very late into the night." Isa sets down his teacup with the utmost care, making sure to not break any rule he's spent so long trying to teach Lea, and looks back at the man with stubborn, determined eyes. "Besides," he continues, "do you really wish to walk around the woods under the heavy, cold rain, freezing to the point of immobility?"

For a moment Lea is speechless, staring at Isa as he calmly stirs his tea as if what he's just said is the most normal thing in the world. The hunter's brain takes too long to reconnect itself, finding the whole situation to be ridiculously bizarre.

Though he and Isa are now on practically friendly terms, spending time together when it's not really necessary and teasing, joking between each other, Lea still feels strange being invited to stay when he can just leave. In fact, the only times Isa has allowed him to stay have been times when there has been no other choice, or times when he didn't even find out. A simple rainstorm would not have stopped the mage before.

The small moment Lea spends thinking is maybe a little too long in reality. Isa's patience runs out as he waits for the hunter to answer him, to acknowledge him, so he clears his throat and Lea comes back to the real world feeling utterly confused.

"What?" Lea repeats himself.

Isa rolls his eyes. "Would you mind sitting back down? It's rude of you to stand there staring like that."

Lea doesn't waste any time. He sits down as if commanded to, and the pair pick up their lessons where they left off again. Perhaps Isa's mind is still not ready to be deciphered yet, and perhaps Lea should stop worrying about trying to discover just what it is that lies beyond the man's unreadable expressions and seemingly random actions.

Because if there's one thing that Lea has learned so far, it is that Isa is a mystery that will reveal itself if he just lets him do it. Give him time, no matter how long.

* * *

The rain stops when it's already dark outside. Neither of them feel like staying up too late then, and before midnight they're both in their rooms trying to attract sleep... Or more like Lea's in a room that he doesn't really dare call his, trying to fight off the sudden cold of the night and wondering if Isa can at least sleep better than he can.

The redhead rolls over for what must be the thousandth time tonight. He huffs loudly and pouts to himself, hugging the thick covers closer to attempt and regain some warmth. Despite this being the only room that Isa has not frozen over yet it's still incredibly cold, perhaps because of the cold seeping in from the hallway and the balcony doors.

Lea whines. It's been a while since he realized that he's going to need to light up a fire to warm up for the night, but it's been a shorter while since he realized that there is no wood left in the fireplace, or anywhere near it for that matter. If he recalls correctly however, there's some of it in the kitchen, but it's not like he finds it inviting to step out of the warm blankets and go out into the icy mansion.

But if he doesn't, then he'll spend the rest of the night lying here awake, teeth chattering, body trembling, mind regretting every minute that he spends in the cold conscious world until the first rays of sunlight sneak into the room...

"I hate my life so much," Lea whispers as he opens the door, carrying the blanket over his shoulders like a cold child.

It's not all that bad, though. The ice-covered hallways have a certain type of beauty to them during the night, as the moonlight comes in to be reflected everywhere by the ice crystals, giving the entire mansion a fantasy look that Lea becomes mesmerized by.

On his way to the kitchen Lea gives himself the time to appreciate the mage's hard work put into the ice-- it's not just about covering every surface with ice to find it more comfortable, it's also about crafting it, making it look beautiful by shaping it just the right way to fit in certain places. A certain type of ice that covers a painting cannot be used to cover a wall, for example. As if on cue Lea runs a hand through a painting of some scenery by the stairs; it's smooth to the touch, with the thin layer of ice over the art piece letting its beauty shine through to be appreciated while protecting it from the dirt, encased in crystalline beauty as it is.

The redhead smiles. Isa truly is a master at his work.

He's already downstairs and halfway to the kitchen when he notices the telltale signs of Isa's presence. The first thing he sees is obviously the ice left behind by the mage's footsteps. The second thing is the hallway that they go into, and the half open door at the end of it. Lea quickly recognizes the door as the entry to the library. A quick memory scan reminds Lea of what's in there other than books, such as a way to access a wing of the mansion still unknown to Lea and one of the many exits to the garden.

The hunter has two choices; to go on his way and get the wood for the fireplace or to take the plunge and follow the mage into wherever it is that he's gotten himself into. So Lea conditions himself; he'll check the garden first, and if Isa's not there, then he will go back to the task at hand and leave it like that.

He's still not very comfortable exploring unknown places of the mansion on his own. Though by a process of elimination and guessing, Lea has now theorized that the whereabouts of Isa's room are within that unknown area, and he'll probably never get to see it. He's fine with it, though. There are certain boundaries he's not willing to cross just because he's curious.

Without further ado Lea wraps the blankets closer around his shoulders and walks towards the hallway and then into the library. He's immediately greeted by the stillness of the room, and the smell of old books that Isa simply refuses to freeze. He'd said something about the ice melting and getting all the pages wet, and the way he'd talked about caring for the books had been so serious that Lea simply couldn't question him.

Lea walks towards the garden doors slowly, running a hand over the books' spines and feeling the pass of time through each and every one of them. Slowly he realizes how he's never really been a fan of reading, and yet Isa's enthusiasm and care for the books in his library is almost as contagious as his smiles, and now, though he doesn't read them yet, Lea sees books as things to be kept and cared for always.

When the bookshelves end Lea stands face to face with the doors to the garden. They're similar to the balcony doors in the guest room, with the glass letting Lea see outside into the area... except that, thanks to Isa's efforts on freezing everything, the ice over the glass distorts the image, making looking out of them to find Isa useless.

The only option left is to go outside. Lea shivers at the thought; it may not be raining anymore, but the outside world has been drenched in it, and the dew left behind only makes the cold of the night feel all that more intense. But what other choice is there for him?

Lea opens the doors very slowly and carefully, yelping and covering his face when the cold midnight air strikes his face. He hugs himself close and tight with the blanket before peeking out into the dead, borderline Wintery garden. Lea spots a speck of blue somewhere off in the distance and smiles. He thinks about calling out to him, getting Isa to look back and notice him, but the way the mage looks up at the sky, almost as if he were expecting something, makes Lea decide against it.

It's a pain to walk when it's so cold out, but Lea manages to at least get near to where Isa stands in the middle of his now bare garden. His footsteps on the dead grass get loud enough when he's closer to alert the mage of his presence, and Isa looks back at Lea with a blank expression. It takes all of the redhead's will to not falter at how distant he suddenly looks, almost as if he were recalling who they were last Winter.

"Couldn't sleep?" Lea casually asks to shake off the strange feeling of dread from within him. The mage shakes his head. His silence only makes Lea even more nervous, but he perseveres. "What are you looking at? The stars?"

"No," Isa breathes out, barely loud enough for Lea to hear, and though the word almost gets lost in the wind Lea still catches it as if it were the most important thing in the world. "I'm waiting."

Lea smiles and sighs in relief. Hearing the mage speak always helps ease his nerves for some reason. "What are you waiting for?"

"You'll see."

After that they fall into another of their familiar, comfortable silences where all that is needed is each other's company. Lea's anxiety is gone, replaced only with curiosity as to what Isa's so eagerly awaiting for. Because now that he takes another look at him, he can see a flicker of excitement buried deep underneath all the blank layers of emotion that Isa usually hides with when he doesn't want Lea to see something.

Lea smirks. He's gotten better at reading the mage, and he knows that. But some habits die hard, it seems; he doesn't notice himself staring at the blue haired man until he returns his gaze, and Lea jumps. Isa frowns deeply before speaking.

"It's been a year."

Lea lets the words hang in the air for a bit, taking them in, before replying with a shrug. "Yup."

Isa just loves to make things awkward, doesn't he? Lea notices that he seems to be struggling with himself, cursing under his breath and turning his face away from the redhead. He seems uncomfortable for some reason, fidgeting, looking up at the sky every now and then as he tries to gather himself up.

Of course Lea waits. He's never had a problem with waiting for him, so why would he have one now?

Suddenly Isa looks back up to the sky, eyes closed. When he talks his voice isn't loud, but it's not low enough for Lea to not be able to hear him either. It's the perfect balance in volume, and when he speaks, he sounds impersonal, deattached, and yet there's a tremble behind his words that lets Lea know that, despite Isa's efforts at distancing himself from his tale, he can't quite achieve his goal.

His voice shakes a little before he begins his story. "Ninety nine years ago," he states, "there was a family who lived in this mansion."

Lea almost drops the blanket, the cold momentarily forgotten to make way for excitement and anticipation.


	6. Over Half A Century Old

Once upon a time there was a couple.

A man and a woman, both of noble descent, who met during Spring and found happiness within each other. As time went by and their relationship bloomed their worlds became one, and soon enough they joined in marriage, searching for a place for their love to grow and fester.

When it came to finding a home, nothing ever satisfied them. A long search through many different properties didn't calm them, ease them, nor did it impress them in any way. All of them were bland to their eyes; the same big house in the same wealthy neighbourhood, surrounded by the same wealthy houses with the same, boring archetype of people.

Both were reserved, gentle people who didn't like to show off. That was enough to set them apart from the rest of their aristocratic society, and yet it was what made them notice each other in the first place. They didn't want to be the subject of the judging and merciless public eye; they just wanted peace and happiness, to share each other's lives in silence. So their choice in a home was something to reflect that.

They decided to construct a mansion stationed in the middle of nowhere. It was rather big in size, and yet plain looking compared to those that they had seen together when they were trying to decide before while still having commodities only nobility would need and like. The nearest village was almost an hour away on foot, and the road there vanished after a certain distance, so as to not draw any attention to themselves. The couple rejoiced at this. No other nobles around to compete with aimlessly, no need for anyone to come bother them for reasons other than trade and work. It was perfect.

Soon enough their house was finished. A selection of people were hired for staff, and the man and the woman were both respected and loved by each and every servant. Their gentle nature made the atmosphere in the mansion a warm, happy one, and so life continued in the building as the couple's love grew and grew...

Though this may look like it, this is not the beginning of the story. Rather, this is the prologue, a piece of the story necessary for context and flavour, yet how relevant it is to the actual story depends on the author's views and decisions.

This prologue ends with the beginning of a new, joined life.

The story begins with the birth of a child.

* * *

He was born in the middle of the night. His mother always thought that was significant somehow-- that the stars had decided to shine for her child and bless him with their light, take him in among them, and that the moon had come up to witness the birth of a new star. His father had always attributed the night to creativity and intelligence. "He will learn by himself," he'd say, "not because we'll leave him, but because he'll want to explore the world on his own."

He was born with the perfect balance of his parents' features. The mother's long, thick blue hair had appeared on him. Perhaps he'd grow it out like her, perhaps he would not. She didn't care. And his eyes... they were green like the sea, the very reflection of his father's.

They loved him, there was no denying that. He was never without their love and care, and just as his father predicted, grew up to be a very curious child. Though they wouldn't let him wander off too far out of their mansion's limits, they'd still let him explore, have adventures, and most of all, they'd provide him with all the books that he could ever ask for.

No one knew when the addiction to reading came to be, but they didn't stop him. He was learning out of it, after all, and who would dare stop a child from finding fun in learning? He'd recite his favourite stories, act them out, and everyone in the mansion would play along with him and congratulate him for his memory, his acting, his ability to learn and grow so fast and absorb long and complicated words into his vocabulary.

"What a good child," his nursemaid would say with a happy smile.

He'd always smile back. Sometimes he'd laugh. It always depended on how focused on his story he was.

When he could actually go outside and explore, he'd pretend to be an adventurer out in search of treasure. Suddenly the trees surrounding his home became the best playmates, the biggest mystery being what it was that they held beneath their shade, their soil. Digging became one of his favourite pastimes, one that he perfected with age as he could manage more and better tools. He'd bury treasures for his future self, leaving letters, and sometimes he'd find a trinket here and there that he would keep for himself-- proof of a good and successful treasure hunt.

He'd keep diaries of his adventures. The first one he got at nine, and from then on he would never stop writing, even if he would only fill it with small summaries of what he'd done during the day. Whether it was studies, playtime, reading, all of it mattered to the little diary.

* * *

Soon enough time took a hold of him and gave him the gift of age and experience. The child became a teenager, and that teenager a young adult. By that time he was already done with explorations and adventures, and so full of new responsibilities that he had almost no time for books, treasures, or long diary entries. His parents were getting old, as they had him when they were already on the journey to old age, and at the tender age of nineteen he decided he would take over their responsibilities and tend to them himself.

He would continue to work and work for the next years to come. He was already a man of twenty one when he forgot how to let his curiosity drag him away, and he was twenty six when he forgot how to write in the blank pages of a diary.

The world was different for him now. No more fantasies or distractions; there were things to take care of, like money and such other things. His family may have been isolated from the world, but that didn't mean that they didn't need the help. He knew exactly how these things worked now. There was no tricking him.

He became a man of seriousness and responsibility, with a dry sense of humour and yet, still, a gentle heart and mind. Though the world had hardened him as he aged he still didn't allow his center, his core, to be tainted by the adult world. Very deep down he still longed for the world that books had taught him about, the only difference now being that his desires were clouded by the thick fog of adulthood.

It was during one of his visits to his favourite place to think and work that he finally noticed the fog even existed at all. It was cold outside, the very first days of winter, and the sun was setting by the time he arrived to his favourite spot in the library to work. After he sat down it took him a while until he noticed a few books stacked by the end of the table, but once he did, they were such a distraction that they wouldn't let him concentrate, so he decided to eliminate the issue altogether.

Getting up to inspect them was the first step. To let his curiosity get the best of him the second. To grab a small, blue book, this one book in particular, that was what started everything.

He opened it on a random page, not really caring what it'd have to say. There were more pressing matters to attend to. But when he laid his eyes on the page he realized something was different here, that this was unusual. What caught his attention first were the drawings: messy, small, simple enough to drive the point home by just glancing at them. It was right then when he realized what this book was, and who the author was.

"My own diary..." he whispered to himself. How on Earth did it get here?

That didn't matter then though. To read the text next to the drawings was a little harder; his childish handwriting hadn't been the best until much later, and apparently this was one of his earlier works. Go figure. After multiple failed attempts he finally decided to simply turn the pages slowly until landing in one that caught his eye once more, and this time, the text was a little easier to read. Perhaps the previous entry had been the result of an overly excited hand attempting to steady itself enough to write.

The words inside the book were serene, yet still excited. They managed to hide that fact to themselves, or so the author thought, seeing how suddenly the letters would become messy and distracted depending on the content, as if the hand they were written with were trembling with too much energy in his own veins.

 _'I've hidden it,'_ the text said. _'My most precious treasure, I have finally hidden it. Somewhere only I will know. I hope that one day my future self will find it again. I probably won't forget; this is too important to forget.'_

So much for importance, huh? In the end he did.

Yet there was something about the text, something in his own words that made him uneasy. A feeling, deep, complicated and strange, foreign and yet familiar, the feeling of a long lost yearning for something rising from under all the adult world fog, bringing with it the warmth of childhood days long gone. It was the thirst for adventure, finally rising up from the depths of the fog that had settled deep within his mind, settling in his chest and urging him to listen to it in a soft whisper that reverberated all over his mind.

And why not listen to it? There was no reason not to.

Getting out of the library, past the garden, it all felt like something he was forbidden to do. And yet that only served to make the whole ordeal even more exciting; his mind was reverting, slowly, back to his child days, when the adventures he'd have weren't exactly things he was allowed to do. But now it was different. He was an adult already, not a child. He could make his own decisions and do whatever he wanted, and even if someone saw him, why would they stop him? He was in a position that allowed him to do anything, and there was no risk of being seen by the curious, judging eyes of other nobles.

He began to run in the middle of his mental release from the world, laughing and smiling as he checked every tree, every bush, every rock just to see where it could have been that he hid his little treasure. By the time he had reached his destination, the air around him had gotten colder, thinner, the childlike adventure rush gone as his tired, shallow breaths were the only sounds in the air other than the wind resonating through the cave in front of him.

He spent some time just standing there, staring and thinking. The diary had come with a small, badly drawn map, and it kept getting crumpled and deformed as his fist closed in on the paper while he thought. There was something about the cave... he couldn't quite tell what it was, only that it was a feeling deep in his gut, stirring and turning his stomach, making him anxious. But which kind of anxious he couldn't know. Perhaps it was fear. Perhaps it was excitement. He couldn't tell what it was, not even when he dared himself inside, slowly advancing in the small, cold, wet cave.

At first there were no problems, maybe just a bump against a wall or a rock, but nothing too serious... until the light started to dim. The entrance was getting further and further away, and with it, the Sun's light. But he thought nothing of it. He still had to press on. And he would-- he was not getting out of here without that treasure. As he extended his hands to feel the area in front of him he began to regret, mentally curse himself for forgetting to come here a little more prepared, for letting his childish mind come forth and take him away so easily.

Though for some reason that only made everything that more interesting, and only made the feeling at the pit of his stomach that much stronger. It only made stumbling feel even more like an adventure, and with each step he got slower, taking mental notes of every twist and turn he took, let alone he tripped or, heaven forbid, got lost, even though now he was pretty sure he had barely taken any real, dangerous turns, and that they were just to avoid rocks and stalagmites. He was pretty sure that he'd been walking in a straight line for whoever long it was that he'd been there.

Yet regardless of progress, it all seemed to be going nowhere. He'd been counting his steps, trying to remember how long it had taken to get right to that spot, but nothing was happening so far. Halfway through the walk in he began to think that maybe it was still time to turn away, time to listen to reason and go home. But at the very moment that he stopped to consider his adult mind's plan, he did it not because he was going to turn and leave, but because the ground beneath him suddenly felt different.

He stepped forward, then frowned. He stomped on the ground with his boot, feeling the texture under it, listening to the sound it made... he knelt down, removed his gloves to feel at it with his skin only to quickly draw back his hands. It was cold, soft... it was snow. But why would snow be all the way in here? He was about to start thinking on it, questioning why and how, when something caught his attention. He looked up and got hit in the face with a sharp, cold breeze coming from deeper within the cave, and he could swear that the air had brought even more snow. It made no sense.

His answer came to him in the most incredible sight he had ever been a witness to. Very slowly a light intensified over a corner, eventually turning and coming face to face with him, and then for a moment everything simply stopped. His breath slowed, the world became quiet, paused. There was not a single thing going on that mattered half as much as what was now revealing itself in front of his eyes, where all of his attention was currently concentrated on.

He'd read about things like these before. He remembered one specific book, a supposed encyclopedia of the magical beings in the world. It had described a serpentine, ghostly and skeletal form floating up in the air, with clouds of what looked like an icy fog emanating from its body. It stared at him through its relatively darker eyes, though they still looked like crystals that reflected the light it somehow gave away. He shivered. These creatures, they'd been given many names, some scary, some peaceful, but at that very moment the only ones that stuck to his memory were the ones that described its terrifying nature. Looking at it up close, he realized that maybe "Ice Wraith" and "Cold Death" were actually very accurate names and not as silly as he had once thought as a child.

He didn't know what to do, staring up at the spirit as it slowly determined whether he was a threat or not, as it positioned itself in a manner similar to a nervous snake. It took a whole minute for his brain to react. His breath hitched, his eyes widened. He took a sudden step back that only served to startle the spirit. There was a hiss, and he grit his teeth as the spirit slowly curled up in the air, assuming a defensive stance, ready to attack should he prove himself dangerous to it.

There was little to no chance for him to escape. For the first time in a long while, he felt fear. A crippling, paralyzing fear that denied him the use of his own legs. He could not move. His mind began to scream at him, telling him to get a hold of himself, to run, to engage in his survival instincts and fight for his life... but he just couldn't get the rest of his body to reconnect with his brain, and he couldn't take his eyes off the spirit in front of him. For all he knew, to stop looking at it would only anger it to aggressive levels. He would be dead before he even moved.

He gulped and immediately decided to force his body to move manually. The first to react were his hands. He slowly curled and uncurled them, regaining the feeling in them while trying to not be noticed by the beast in front of him. The second was his breathing. He calmed himself, took slow and steady breaths instead of the erratic, shallow ones his panic had forced him to take. With that the rest of his mind seemed to clear, and suddenly, controlling himself got easier, even if just by a little.

The next step were his legs. Very carefully, he began to step back without taking his eyes off the creature. With every step he took, his confidence slowly returned and his survival instincts began to kick in. Sometimes the spirit would hiss, and he would take a few seconds to calm his speeding heart before trying once more to step away. It was a good plan, one that almost worked until his feet finally got off the snowy ground and onto the rocky floor again. The noise his footstep made, his own sudden panic at losing his footing to rocks all of a sudden, it was all it took for the ice serpent to tense up, hiss threateningly and aggressively, and in that moment he knew that time was up.

Cold sweat began to trail down his spine when he avoided the snake's bite, and as he ran away holding onto the wall using the spirit's unnatural light to guide himself. It was coming after him, that he knew. The light didn't fade. He was halfway there when he began to feel the cool air sneaking in through the cave's entrance, the light of the day outside growing in size as he approached the opening. He allowed himself a smile. His heart suddenly felt light; he was going to make it. Everything in him felt hopeful, confident in his escape--

He was twenty steps away when he heard the snake's paralyzing roar a little too close behind him, stopping him long enough for him to trip and lose his footing momentarily, staggering. It was enough time for the spirit to catch up to him, and he only had the chance to turn around to see it pierce through him, going into his chest and out of his back in one quick, swift motion, almost as if he weren't even solid.

He doubled over as he gasped for air. His chest felt cold, his lungs, heart. The air he quickly breathed in a panic felt like it was freezing his nose, mouth, his throat, every single part of him felt like it was freezing over or being pierced by the ice. He felt a fear so intense it clouded his mind immediately, his hands flew to his throat as he kept gasping, trying to somehow warm up to stop the cold pain.

And yet it was worthless.

Each step he took to get out of the cave was more agonizing than the last. Very slowly did the cold spread from chest and torso to extremities and face, covering him in ice, and by the time he was finally out in the light of day, his teeth were chattering and his whole body was trembling slowly, uselessly trying to warm itself up. It wasn't long before he could no longer feel most of his body, with his limbs going numb and unresponsive as walking became an even harder task to accomplish. He felt nothing when he collapsed on the dead grass. He was too scared to even try to look for the spirit again, even though the serpent had already flown away, trying to find somewhere else to hide without being bothered by the slowly dying man outside of its original spot.

Short, raspy breaths were the only sound in the woods aside from the slow breeze moving the trees' foliage. He curled on his side, on the verge of tears, as he slowly felt his end claw at his body. Death by freezing, that wasn't the way he had wanted to go. He didn't even want to go yet-- he was not ready to die, he'd never been. He was only twenty seven years old, and had already forgotten how to live when he let unnecessary things cloud over everything else.

"I... don't..."

Those were the last words he uttered then, right before he stopped moving, stopped breathing. All that was left was a frozen man lying on the cold dirt, staring wide eyed at nothing as the sun continued its journey in the skies.

* * *

He awoke when the stars were out, and when the moon had already graced him with her light. There was snow falling from the sky, the first snowfall of the year, the telltale sign of Winter finally having settled in already blanketing the grounds where he lay.

At first he was confused. How was he awake? Why? The last thing he remembered was, in short, his very own death. The feeling of every limb, organ, and blood vessel in his body freezing had been all too real for him to have imagined it... and yet here he was, lying on his side on the dead grass, slowly being engulfed by the steady snowfall. How?

There was no time for wondering now. It was night, and if the Cold Death somehow didn't do the job then the cold air was granted to freeze him to death instead. Very carefully he rose to his feet, slowly at first as to not hurt himself, then he picked up the pace when he realized nothing hurt as badly as he'd imagined it would, or as he remembered. He did a quick eye search of the surrounding area to remind himself of where he was. All he remembered before his death was running out of that damned cave and collapsing somewhere nearby it. He didn't want to look back, so he simply looked ahead, trembling hands balled into fists, and began the trek home.

He walked fast, thinking that if he kept himself in movement, the cold wouldn't get to him as fast. But for some reason his temperature just didn't seem to drop. He never shivered, he never slowed down. His breath never fogged up.

He didn't have the time to wonder just what it was that was going on when he reached his destination. He'd expected the garden's boundaries to look like heaven on Earth when he finally crossed them, but what he didn't expect was the swarm of staff members, all rushing to meet him and speaking at the same time in the same worried tone, some reprimanding him, others uttering their relieved thoughts at finally having their lord back.

They rushed him inside, complaining about how insanely cold he was. "This is what you get for being outside so long," he heard someone say as they ushered him to his room, draping warm blankets all over him, serving him hot tea. Who it was, he did not care; his mind felt suddenly foggy, tired, and confused, and it was worsening by the minute. He still hadn't fully processed the fact that he was back home, safe. Everything felt wrong for some reason he just couldn't quite put his finger on...

When his parents finally came to see him in his room things happened way too fast. There was a cry, then a slap, then tears from his worried, decrepit old mother. His father kept asking him just what it was that had gotten into him, to go outside and come back so late, so cold, in the middle of a snowfall such as this. Hadn't he heard the weather report, he asked. Hadn't he thought ahead, brought something warm for himself...

And yet nothing was getting past the murky grayness all over his head and mind that seemed to be getting worse with every breath he took, a task that was getting more and more difficult with every passing second. His eyes began to close, his words became slurry mumbles, the world began to go black. Something was definitely wrong. He felt an immense fear the moment he felt his heartbeat slow down, when the entire world shut down around him as he slipped into unconsciousness.

The last thing his mind could process before he abandoned them were the confused, worried cries of his parents.

* * *

The following days were terrible, to say the least. He had fallen ill to some unknown disease, and no amount of remedies could cure it. He was cold to the touch, barely conscious, bedridden for the rest of the month, perhaps even longer.

All he knew was that he felt like was dying. Again. The longer he spent in bed, the more covers that were added to him, and the more time he spent unconscious and mumbling incoherences while trying to come out of the limbo between the sleeping world and the waking world. But with everyone's worried hands stopping him from getting away on his own, it was difficult to oppose the weight they instilled on him.

Time passed him by without him knowing. He was pretty sure that it had been about two weeks when he suddenly awoke with a start one night, breathing heavily and feeling as though no air were making it to his lungs. He didn't register anything when he slowly and weakly threw his covers away from him -- all he knew was that he needed space, he needed air, and he needed it now.

As fast as he could, he stumbled out of bed and onto the floor, coughing and spluttering and too weak to even get up. He simply rested his face against the chilly floor, knowing that lying on something so cold would only bring him more health problems, but at this point, he did not care. He was sure that he would die if he stayed in bed, sweating and unconscious, incoherent and feeling as though he were melting.

Slowly, he looked up at the nearest window. There was a very small, thin layer of ice on the glass, with the weak snowfall outside giving him a sense of tranquility as the moon looked down at him with all her serene beauty. It gave him peace. He closed his eyes, counted his breaths as his body once more regained its strength. He was getting better. He was okay. Everything was going to be alright. Two minutes passed when he opened his eyes again. Judging by the moon's position, it was probably way past midnight at that moment, meaning everyone was asleep. He sighed; he just didn't feel like sleeping the night away anymore, and some company would've been great after so long.

But now was the time to move. Very slowly he lifted himself with his hands, taking care to not overdo anything, seeing as he was still weak. He helped himself to a standing position, leaning against the wall as he regained his breath. The world was dark and quiet, but despite the snow outside it didn't shiver at all. He frowned, and then decided to come out of the room and see if he could find anybody to talk to, or wake someone up to tell them how he finally felt better, how he could resume his work and have everything go back to normal at last. There was nothing he desired more than a sense of normality after all that had happened.

He walked, leaning against the wall, all the way from his room to wherever he thought he could find someone still awake. Perhaps, if he was lucky, someone in the mansion would find themselves unable to sleep, or too ridden by work to go to bed. He could talk to them then. Carefully he dragged himself to the kitchen, to the library, to anywhere where he knew servants usually found themselves in, or his own parents whenever they found sleep an impossible door to reach, but no matter where he looked, there was not a single soul awake in the building.

He was just about to give up and go back to the library to read the night away when he heard a voice behind him. He turned around to come face to face with one of his cleaning ladies, with a face full of concern and something that he just couldn't quite put his finger on. She quickly approached him, asked why he wasn't wearing anything warmer, asked him if he was alright. He kept his smile as he slowly and patiently answered all of her questions, letting her fret over him, and even letting her stare at him for a few seconds before he calmly asked her what was wrong.

She blinked. "Sir," she spoke gently, "pardon me, but I found you here by following a trail of ice."

At first he couldn't understand, so she turned around and pointed to the small puddles where a few pieces of ice were still standing strong thanks to the cold atmosphere. He stared at them, then asked her where they had come from. She slowly turned back to him and said, in the softest, yet most frightened tone he had ever heard from her, the words that marked the beginning of the end.

"Sir, the ice came from your footsteps."

* * *

He confined himself to his room. He would not eat, he would not sleep, even though he still did not get any weaker anyway. Nothing ever happened to change his condition; he discovered that he was still strong as long as he remained cold, and any amount of warmth he subjected himself to would weaken him. How it affected him depended on how warm he was, and in the back of his mind he began to dread the end of the Winter.

But there were more pressing matters at hand than the change of seasons, or at least for now. The entire floor was frozen over in all the places he had paced over in his mental, emotional panic. But that was not the end of it. As the days passed, he realized the small snowfall that had started to fall in his room, and how, when distressed, he would freeze everything that he came in contact with. He would not allow that, so it was for this very reason that he promised himself that he would control it, contain his own emotions during his isolation, just as he already had as he had grown up.

Every now and then there'd be a knock at his door, a voice begging for him to come out, asking what was wrong. They didn't seem to know what was happening, apparently. At first he would mumble vague answers so low that they would never be picked up. It didn't take long until he stopped altogether, but the voices never left, they never went away, even when the meals at his door ceased to appear.

The only connection to the outside world that he had were his large windows. Every day he would look outside, he would see the stillness of the white blanket of snow, sometimes even a few people here and there, doing servant work or taking walks. It was exhausting. Yet he continued to keep watch, until the snow gave way for Spring, and only then did his worries about the weather come back to him full-force.

Only then did he open his door.

What a disaster that day was, a particularly suffocating hot day when he stumbled to the door, panting and weak, unlocking it slowly until it opened. He fell as he opened it, collapsing on the still cold floor and weakly calling for help. And when help came by, he did not know. He didn't even remember falling unconscious. All he recollected when he awoke was being on a bed, uncovered, watching as his old father looked down upon him with a both horrified and concerned face.

Nobody made any inquiries this time, nor did they comment on his condition unless it was absolutely necessary. He was kept cold, no questions asked. There was no need for that.

Time became abstract after that, as he would spend the hotter months unconscious and the cold ones locked away. The warm and calm atmosphere of the mansion was replaced with an icy tension, and as the years kicked by, the silence in the building became a blanket that covered everything, and very rarely would anyone engage in conversation. It was as if everyone were too afraid that sound would break the man even more than he already was. Words spoken from him were a privilege to hear nowadays; he refused to talk ever since the event with the ice on the floor, only daring to utter a few words when he really needed to do so.

And yet his mother would always be there, sitting beside him. "Please," she would say, "Tell me what is happening."

He never even looked at her, too full of shame and fear to even do so. But she was still hopeful. She continued to make him company every day, every month, every year, thinking that all he needed was time and patience until he opened himself up again.

It was such a shame when her beliefs were proved wrong the day she died.

Old age, everyone said, and shortly after her husband followed her to the ends of their lifespans. Both had always been so close, and it only made sense that they would leave together... but their absence left a hollow feeling in their son's cold, frozen heart. One that he did not know what to do with, so he resorted to hiding in his icy room, sometimes taking midnight walks to his library just to get rid of some of the numbness within.

He didn't know how long it had been after the death of his parents. He would count the winters, at least, but time mattered little to him anymore. He stopped keeping track of it, the only reason why he knew that time was still taking effect in the world outside was because of the pass of seasons that he would witness from his frozen windows, the slow leave of servants that he would witness from his room, watching as they'd leave their footsteps behind in the snow in winter and no trace at all in warmer months.

And yet that was all that time seemed to be affecting; he couldn't notice a single sign of aging in himself anymore, as if he were stuck in the twilight of time, death, and life.

On the tenth winter he finally understood that what he had was a curse, and that his own home had been transformed into the lair of a monster by his own apathy. That same day he came out of his room to find the mansion absolutely empty, servants finally completely gone, food spoiled and rotten, a mess of things everywhere, dust covering every surface it touched. It tugged at his heart, but that was all it could do to him anymore. He turned away from the mess and began to freeze the rest of the building under his cold, merciless touch.

And so it began.

Once upon a time there was a man in a mansion of ice, wallowing in his own sadness and bitterness as the years passed him by, the curse within him never letting him join the flow of life of the world outside.

That was, until coincidence decided to have a little fun, swinging his doors open on one winter's day.


	7. The Thaw

When Isa stops talking it seems as if the whole world goes quiet just for him. The moon, now hidden behind the thick clouds above, sometimes shines through between small spaces between them opened by the wind. Her glow looks almost eerie with the rest of the darkened landscape; Isa's garden, dead and sleeping, inviting winter to come and claim it already.

Lea's gaze leaves the skies to rest on the man in front of him. He watches as Isa hides his face under the hood again, his hand lingering on the fabric over his nose for a while, and the redhead frowns. He's about to protest and ask the mage just why he's hiding now of all times, and for what? What is there left to hide? But his mouth immediately closes when Isa drops his hand, sighs, and speaks back up before he can.

"It's been a hundred years since that day in the cave, with today marking the hundredth anniversary of that event." Isa speaks clearly, his voice loud and strong despite the weak tremble hidden underneath it. He spends a few seconds in silence, almost as if he were trying to find his words once again. But he never quite gets to it when he inhales sharply, looking up as he extends one hand, walking forward just a couple of steps. Very slowly, a single snowflake falls on his open, unprotected palm, and Lea knows that no matter what, it won't melt under Isa's care.

And yet for some reason that's enough to get the cold man to tremble, shiver, to hold himself close with his free arm as he tries his best to swallow all emotions and speak. "You see?" he half whispers, half chokes, "Do you see what this all means? The story, the vagueness of it all, the parallels it has to what you've already witnessed from me. Do you understand?"

Isa looks as though he's having trouble keeping himself standing, and all of a sudden he whines as he drops his head and hides it behind his free hand. Lea is about to call out to him, already reaching for him, when Isa stops him before he can even take one single step. "No," he croaks, "Listen. You must _listen._ You need to know."

"What is there left to know?" Lea asks him as calmly as he can even though, internally, he's pretty much freaking out. "You've told me all there is already--"

"It's no use if I don't tell you directly, don't you think?"

Somehow, Lea feels as though he's right. He nods slowly, closes his mouth and stands back upright to let him speak. Isa finally turns to see him, dropping both hands and the snowflake along with them. His mouth, the only visible part of his face once again, expressionless and doing a terrific job at hiding his emotions. It somehow gives Lea a small, quiet moment of admiration when he sees Isa standing tall and proud again, no longer weighed down by the hot air that surrounded him for so long.

Around them the snowfall slowly begins to intensify. The air plays with their clothes and hair and chills Lea's cheeks until they're red, but he doesn't care. Tomorrow the grounds will be covered in the white blanket so characteristic of winter, and maybe Isa will spend more time outside. It doesn't matter where he goes, because Lea knows that he will stubbornly follow him anyway, cut the silence that Isa loves so much to make way for stupid, pointless chatter that Isa will fall for regardless of protests.

Lea would be wondering why he's so sure of this if it weren't for the fact that Isa begins to speak, shutting down all the noise in his mind and surrounding world just enough so he's the only one who can be heard.

"Lea," Isa's voice is soft like the snow, and the redhead can detect the sadness and pain within it for once in his life. "I died the moment that Ice Wraith pierced right through me, and I was brought back to inhabit the world between life and death as one of its own kind. I am not a mage. I am not a human. I am just like one of them," his words get more and more desperate as he continues. "I. Cannot. Die. No matter how much I wait I cannot die. I exist in a frozen reality, and I can't stop."

The man hidden by the hood looks up at the sky, raising both hands in a cup and catching more snowflakes within them. He pauses for a moment before continuing to speak, still softly, as if he were afraid of what Lea will say if he shuts up. "I have been selfish," he says, spitting out the words like they taste bitter. He doesn't speak again after that, but Lea can see that there's still more afterwards that he's just not willing to spill out yet. So he waits again, the patience in his veins now so used to Isa's silences that it doesn't need to rush him anymore.

Eventually Isa gets sick of his own silences and drops his hands to hold himself tight. He lowers his face, grits his teeth as he forces himself to talk, almost as if he's kept himself protected for so long that suddenly letting it all out is a physically painful thing for him to do. "I've kept you here, allowed you to be here," he stammers, "despite the fact that I'm going to outlive you. You will die and I will continue my flow through the world and you won't be there. And I've kept this secret for so long, because I've been isolated for so long, so how am I supposed to tell someone that I simply cannot die? I just don't... I don't..."

Lea frowns and gulps, holding himself as well within blanket because of the cold air and snow piling on him. "You don't...?"

"I don't want to watch you die."

The world seems to stop right at that moment. Lea, seconds later, staggers back, eyes wide as he realizes that all the air has been knocked out of his lungs in his surprise. Isa takes his chance and drops his hands to his sides for the last time, walking towards Lea while the redhead still tries to come to terms with why he's been surprised, and what these news really mean to him, and just why it is that he's freaking out so bad over a string of words from the mage in front of him that is suddenly really close--

Before he can even register it Isa has already wrapped his arms around Lea and hid his face in his chest in the coldest embrace the redhead has ever received. He shivers, and just when Isa is about to let go of him to keep him from the discomfort of his temperature he clings back to the blue haired and pulls down his hood as gently as he can. The mage looks up, and though he hides it well, Lea can see that he's been startled, his expression now extremely easy to read thanks to the time Lea has spent memorizing his face and every way it contorts whenever he could see it. The hunter smirks, even with the chattering of his teeth and the flushing of his cheeks that makes him look so, as he thinks, uncool.

Isa's shorter than him. He hadn't really realized it, since neither of them had ever come this close before, but for some reason that simple fact sets his heart ablaze, and in the spur of the moment he finally understands everything that Isa's been trying to say. Now feeling a lot more confident, Lea continues to enjoy the closeness, staring at Isa's face with a smile until he notices the blue haired's eyes going from his face to rest away, unhappiness clear in his features. And so the smile is gone, and Lea's left whispering words of reassurance to Isa as he hopelessly fights off the cold.

The mage in his arms doesn't respond at first. He simply sighs and hesitatingly rests his head against Lea's chest again, afraid to break the silence and yet set on getting his point across. "I don't know what you've done," he mumbles in an effort to get Lea to not understand his words, "but I don't think I can bear... outliving you. I think... I think I..." He pauses again, squeezing Lea as the redhead hugs him back, yet takes his eyes off Isa's hiding face to look away and cough in a flustered manner.

Then Isa mumbles something against him that Lea can't understand, and Lea looks back at him curiously. "What?"

Maybe Isa is simply too proud to repeat himself out loud for Lea to hear. Maybe he is too embarrassed, or something, and maybe he just thinks that coming out of hiding and kissing Lea right on the lips would be a better answer than any words he could've repeated otherwise, and it's right then and there that Lea's brain shuts down the moment he feels the other's cold lips on his.

It's not what he had expected, but really, what had he expected anyway? Lea's brain slowly reconnects with the rest of his body and surroundings to messily return Isa's shy and flustered kiss. It's... actually quite pleasant, ignoring the freezing temperature of Isa's skin. The redhead shivers, and it's not long until he has to break off the kiss just to stop himself from losing all feeling on his lips. He stares at Isa, who has resorted to looking down and hiding his face yet again, and suddenly Lea finds that embarrassment is contagious.

He can't tell if the burning feeling on his cheeks is because of the cold or because of the fire in his own chest. But when he looks away to cough into his fist and try to calm down, Lea finds that he quite prefers to think that it's the latter. Once he comes to terms with that he smiles, then looks back at Isa with a soft chuckle that earns him a frown from the mage, then a glare, and he can't stop himself from giving Isa a quick peck on the forehead, even if Isa whines in a perfect embarrassment that Lea knows he has not felt in so very long.

Lea's smile widens, and all of a sudden, in the perfect stillness of the moment, he finally understands what that little mumble had been. "Hey," he whispers, "I love you too."

His laugh resonates through the entire garden when Isa practically growls at him, hiding his face away and mumbling something about hating Lea more than he can ever love him.

* * *

Weeks later, on a blindingly white winter day, the hunter sees himself holding a something special within his coat.

He can't stop smiling to himself. After all the troubles he's gone to to get this, the wait has finally paid off just for this surprise. And even though he's excited Lea travels the woods carefully and slowly, already having learned from his other failures while traversing this place to not be an overly excitable idiot again. He takes his time as he goes, measuring every step he takes, walking slowly, holding close his treasure so as to keep it as safe as it can be, from both the outside world and his own happy idiocy.

Ignoring the slow snowfall and the steadily setting sun, the redheaded hunter allows himself a laugh as he crosses a frozen river. Today is special. Lea has been keeping track of time well enough to remember that the end of the year is only less than a few hours away from now, and he has decided to make this the best New Year's Eve he can possibly provide. What he holds within his coat is therefore the product of his efforts, an entire two months of savings put into something of a treat both for himself and Isa.

Thinking of the blue haired sends an instantaneously huge grin to his face. It has barely even been a month since that first snowfall, and already the two of them have gone from close to almost inseparable, openly in the redhead's case and almost shyly in Isa's. Lea finds himself looking forward to visiting more and more with each passing day, sometimes even staying as per Isa's request, and Lea always laughs and shrugs, accepting, seeing as he pretty much already lives there anyway.

It has been quite a year, he thinks. What started as a simple mystery that he wished to uncover and solve has ended up being one of the best things Lea could have done with his time, joining his mind with another and learning, growing as a person while he's let Isa do the same. The walk to the mansion seems ten times more worth it now than it ever did before as well, and even more so when he imagines Isa standing in the middle of the ballroom, proud, looking away and simply being too stubborn to let himself be loved properly.

Lea's footsteps get a little quicker the closer he gets, but he never allows himself to carelessly break into a sprint, or to do some other stupid thing of the sort. He takes his time, knowing that, regardless of how long he takes, seeing Isa and giving him his present will be worth the wait. And he's right; he reaches the wall minutes after coming to that conclusion, and then smiles broadly when he finds Isa waiting for him by the main gate, looking away for a second before registering the redhead's presence and turning his face to see him. The way Isa's face discreetly lights up does wonders to Lea's heart, and he laughs while he approaches the mage for a quick, flustered greeting kiss.

"Couldn't wait to see me, huh?" Lea smirks.

Despite his inability to blush, Lea thinks that one would look great on Isa the moment he averts his eyes and huffs in a dismissive way, as he gently and quietly takes a hold of the hunter's arm and guides him inside, closing the main gates and walking behind the happy redhead as he tells him of his trip.

That's usually how their meetings go nowadays, with Lea doing the talking and Isa listening, seemingly deattached and yet secretly memorizing every detail in Lea's words. That had been quite a surprise for the hunter one day, and one that Isa had waited until now to reveal, way after his story was known. Despite his usual coldness and seriousness Isa slowly turns out to be just a small and lonely soul, one that Lea's more than happy to be with and provide for.

They walk together to the dining room, and Lea delights himself in pronouncing the blue haired's name to get his attention. "Guess what?"

Isa doesn't respond verbally when he's curious. Instead, he looks directly at Lea, then down to his coat when the redhead opens it and reaches inside for the gift. When he thinks he's not looking, Isa tilts his head, frowns, and pouts in a pensive manner, trying to figure him out. Lea would flush if he weren't already from the cold -- Isa can be really cute.

Finally getting a hold of his treasure Lea can't help the huge grin that spreads on his face, and he enjoys every second that it takes for him to pull out the object. He manages to get it out in the open in one swift motion, and Lea chuckles at Isa's surprised gasp when he sees the green bottle of wine in the hunter's gloved hands.

"Happy new year," he says, handing it to Isa with a quick, cold kiss on the cheek.

"I don't drink," comes Isa's immediate protest.

That makes the hunter snort. "Come on! Just one cup with me. Nothing more."

Lowering his gaze down to the bottle in his hands, Isa sighs. He turns it over and over, inspecting it, taking in the details of the glass and making a sound in the back of his throat. "How did you get this?" he finally asks later, looking back into Lea's eyes and idly gesturing to the bottle with the red liquid inside with his head.

Lea sighs. He'd be offended if Isa were any other person, to be honest. "I saved up," he states as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, shrugging and smiling almost sheepishly. "Granted, I only managed to afford the cheapest bottle the guy had, but he said it's still good quality regardless."

Isa presses his lips into a tight line. "I don't know what to say..."

"Then don't say anything! Just point me to your cups when the night falls." Lea then takes the bottle from Isa's hands, already cold after having been within his hold, and walks slowly to the kitchen with the blue haired man in tow. He talks and talks endlessly again, telling Isa stories of his not so glorious nights when he had too much to drink, grinning when he hears the man behind him laugh sometimes.

Lea's heart feels light whenever he hears the sound. If he could help it he wouldn't do it, but there's just something about Isa's laughter that melts his worries away and forces him to take Isa by surprise with a kiss each time. It's just a lovely sound to hear, is all. The mage never protests, nor does he even show any discomfort; he just holds onto the redhead lightly, shyly, and it's almost as if, after an entire year of keeping him away to get him to leave, Isa just doesn't know how to let him in closer anymore.

Yet it isn't as though Isa doesn't try his best. All his smiles, laughs, all the times that he sets a hand to touch Lea gently and comfortingly, all those times let the redhead know that he is welcome here, that he is loved.

Lea's heart does yet another jump, and he smiles into the kiss.

They spend the last afternoon of the year talking and laughing, even calling each other names just for old times' sake. By the time the sun goes down, at around eleven, if Isa's calculations of the moon are correct, the two of them have already opened the bottle, poured themselves a couple of glasses that soon become enough to get them laughing and stumbling, ending up 'lost' together in a large room where the two of them first met. The ice-covered ballroom looks beautiful with the moonlight seeping in from the windows, and suddenly Lea, holding Isa's hand as they slowly walk in and ignoring the numbing feeling the mage's cold skin leaves, blinks and remembers.

"Huh," Lea says, "I just realized I never asked you about this room."

Isa holds onto Lea's hand tightly, cold spreading despite the glove, pressing their shoulders together while keeping an air of hilariously calm drunkenness around him. He hums at Lea's words. "What about it?"

"You said the mansion was built here to keep guests away, right? So I don't understand," and Lea frowns here, "why it is that they built a ballroom in here anyway."

What Lea doesn't expect is exactly what happens: Isa chokes on his own words, turns his face away, and hides it behind his free hand. Trying to understand what has happened, Lea calls out for the blue haired, lets go of his hand and shifts his position to stand right in front of him and ask him, just what is the matter?

But still Isa won't meet his gaze. For some reason he simply refuses to do so, shaking his head when asked to explain why. It takes a lot of coercing and convincing from the redhead, but in the end he manages to get him to reveal his face again and speak again, even if, when he does it, all he manages is a mumble that Lea already knows well, and one that he just can't miss.

"My parents... they loved to dance..."

Somehow that's just the most perfect thing Isa could ever have said right now. Lea grins, and then a plan forms itself in his head right away. "Ah," his smile broadens when Isa squints in suspicion, "And did they ever teach you how to dance?"

"Lea, what are you--"

Before Isa can even finish, Lea already has him by the waist, holding him close, both of them now positioned in the general ballroom dance posture.

Maybe it's the alcohol in their bloodstreams, but Lea almost thinks that he's just seen a miracle that has allowed Isa to blush. He pockets the special memory and laughs, starting to move and dance uncoordinated with the mage in arms, closing the space between them and quite enjoying Isa's wiggling and protests that almost seem not to make sense in all his drunken and flustered glory. Lea guides his partner stupidly, not really knowing what he's doing and planting light kisses on Isa's face between his giggles, shivering, but still warm inside with pure joy.

Way too many times Isa tries to get Lea to quit the damn dancing without really doing an effort to actually stop him. Way too many times does Lea simply consider him joking, too flustered, and then he realizes that Isa really is too embarrassed when he suddenly pouts up at Lea with the most pitiful expression he can ever muster.

They still don't stop when he speaks. "You're terrible at dancing," Isa quickly stammers, trying to keep up with Lea's drunken one-two-threes. "You're terrible at leading too. Keep it up and we're going to fall over, and that'll be your fault alone. I won't help you up if you fall. And why do you even get to lead, anyway?"

Lea laughs out loud. "I lead because I'm taller!"

"That's not an excuse! I'm pretty sure I know more about dancing than you do."

"Well," the redhead lets go of Isa's waist to lead the other's hand to his own, and then rests his remaining hand on the blue haired's shoulder. "Why don't _you_ teach me, then?"

Of course Isa immediately refuses, and of course Lea then threatens to go back to drunkenly leading their night dance if he doesn't want to teach him, and that's the only way that the redhead gets Isa to begin the first steps, flustered and spitting insults that he doesn't really mean in his embarrassment, the height difference not helping matters.

Even though he takes a few tries to get the hang of the dance once again, Isa is, obviously, amazing at dancing. Lea guesses that maybe he did have a few classes on the subject when he was younger, but with the pass of time and his loneliness he just hasn't had any time to exert his knowledge. Seeing him now as he slowly lets himself loose to get relearn the dance, it seems like Isa really does enjoy the activity, even when he's tipsy, trying hard to not screw up a step and make himself look bad.

"You need to slide, slide," Isa says, both to himself and to Lea. "The dance has to flow nicely and naturally."

Lea grumbles. "Try having as many cups as I did and slide 'nicely and naturally' afterwards."

The mage suddenly laughs and hides his face against Lea's chest, and they are so close that his laughter spreads through the hunter's body until he finds himself joining in with his own voice. The two of them stumble, properties of the dance already forgotten to make way for awkward uncoordinated steps, and as quickly as they began Lea and Isa stop in the middle of the ballroom, hugging and laughing in drunken happiness.

With a sigh Lea realizes that he really enjoys whenever the air of the room shifts every time Isa laughs and allows himself to be happy. The mansion's walls seem more colourful now compared to when he first arrived, and after the very moment that the two had understood their feelings underneath the first snowy sky, something in the mansion became inviting and felt safe.

He holds the mage close and decides to run his fingers through his soft, long blue hair, relishing in the feeling of Isa relaxing against him as he does so. It feels like a dream, and just like everything that he has been looking forward to since the very first day when he realized how important Isa really was to him.

"Hey," Lea suddenly whispers, "Do you think it's midnight already?"

Isa hums. "I don't know. Maybe we missed it."

Before Lea can reply he accidentally releases a shaky breath. He mentally curses himself for it when he feels Isa tense against him, dream atmosphere broken by the physical cold he now realizes he feels, and by Isa quickly letting go of him and stepping away.

"I'm sorry," Isa mumbles.

Lea tries his best to shrug nonchalantly and fails when he feels the cold night air hit him in the face, making him shudder and probably reddening his cheeks an even darker hue. "Don't worry about it. It's just late and it's cold outside, is all," he explains as logically as he can, and he almost feels like he's lying when Isa doesn't seem convinced. The mage sighs, his breath invisible unlike Lea's fogged up, warm one, and slowly curls into himself, closing the gates to his heart with fear. The redhead frowns. He already knows Isa enough to know when he's upset.

No, this isn't what he'd wanted. "Isa..." Lea whispers, walking forward to take the mage's hand in his. Isa steps back just before he can get too close, drawing his hand away and frowning at Lea with an expression of deep worry all over his features that he doesn't even try to hide anymore.

"I'll only make you colder."

The hunter makes a face and reaches for Isa's hand regardless, practically running to get it when the mage only keeps getting away from him. Once he's got the cold hand in his own gloved one, Lea locks their fingers together, and then tries hard to ignore the rush of cold all over his palm. "I don't care," he says, voice strong and loud enough to echo all over the room, exactly as he wants.

Isa still doesn't let himself be convinced. He squirms, doesn't even hold Lea's hand back, sighing and looking away to the floor in shame. Lea thinks that maybe the alcohol has made him more suceptible and sensitive to their inability to touch for long. All the excitement and joy are gone from Isa's face, replaced with a cloud of sadness and guilt that Lea wishes to chase away until it never comes back to haunt him.

But more than anything, Lea wishes for Isa to be happy after an eternity of misery.

So he makes a sound of frustration in the back of his throat, takes the blue haired's face in his hands when he's distracted, ignores the squeak of surprise, and kisses him on the lips for the first time in the new year. It's a long one, and despite the closed eyes Lea can feel Isa struggle with himself, not knowing whether to let himself into the moment or run away.

When he breaks the kiss he takes the shorter man into his arms and holds him close, squeezing him reassuringly, staring at the beautiful, frozen floor of Isa's ballroom. "I don't mind the cold so long as I get to be with you," he whispers into the other's ear with as much strength as he needs to drive his point across. "There's nothing more important than you to me, and I don't care how long it takes me to learn to love and live with the cold; I'll do it just to stay with you."

Isa begins to tremble as he slowly clings onto him. His voice is but a weak, shaky whisper when he speaks, "But for how long will that be?"

"For however long it is." Lea gives the mage a kiss on the side of his head when the man whines so low he sounds pathetically lost. "For as long as I live, I promise to be with you and never leave. And even when my time is up, I'll always come back to this mansion. I'll always find you again, after climbing through your walls and breaking into your main hallway like the idiot I'll always be."

There's a muffled sound coming from Isa as he clings onto the hunter like a hurt child. Lea shushes him, pets his hair, and slowly realizes that the sound is nothing but Isa's choked, small sobs between trembles. It's the first time that the man cries, and it's so soft and gentle that Lea doesn't know what to do other than hold him close as the blue haired's emotions cause snow to fall within the room.

Minutes later, after letting go of him, Lea observes the man's face; weak, vulnerable, vascilating between returning to the icy prison he's kept his heart in for a hundred years or finally breaking free from it. Lea removes his right hand's glove and sets it gently over Isa's cold cheek, softly smiling down at him in a way that's supposed to tell him that it's okay, he's here, and he'll be here in this world so long as Isa remains in the mansion, waiting for Lea's soul to come back in another body.

Isa finally allows himself to look back into the redhead's eyes, and a small smile paints itself over his face at the mere sight of this man in front of him. He sets both of his icy cold hands over Lea's, unable to stop his gentle crying but still smiling just for him, knowing very well that the gesture feeds the warmth of Lea's heart.

Right at that moment, Lea declares that Isa's happiness is beautiful. He finds this moment to be just right, and feels like nothing else matters if it gets to share something like this with someone like Isa, this one person whose smiles are like snowflakes and whose laughs are like music to his ears. And it's right then that he realizes that Isa's is not the only heart that has been released from loneliness, and how the mage has allowed Lea to understand what love is despite his previous inexperience in the subject.

Within his chest there is a fire that he hopes won't go out for the rest of his life, and Lea smiles just as broadly as Isa. "You'll just have to promise me one thing though," he whispers, voice full of wonder and excitement and all kinds of feelings that he only wishes to share. "You'll have to promise me to help every red haired idiot you come across to try and remember the first time he broke his arm when delivering apples for his most wonderful discovery."

Isa, as happy as he is, takes a few tries before he can speak, but in the end he simply nods and grins between his sweet tears.

"I promise."

Right then their hearts open up at the same time, and their two souls interwine to never allow one to stray, always helping it find its home. No matter how long he waits, a redheaded idiot will always stumble into his home, and Isa, no longer alone in this world, will smile as their story writes itself again and again and again, for as long as he can be a beacon for Lea's soul to find every time he returns to the unierse.

For now the moon shines bright above the run-down mansion, with fire and ice coexisting perfectly within its walls in the middle of a ballroom too big for two.

-End-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PHEW ALRIGHT now that this is over I can say a bunch of stuffs about it  
> This has been a very interesting project to work on!! And I hope that y'all enjoyed it and that the ending was good enough. I would like to thank all the betas that helped me out with this, but Raven the most for sticking with me all the way through the end. You rock, dude  
> And then there's Koro!! I wrote this story for her and talked about it with her the most. I wanted to write this so she could read along and find out with time, and I hope she liked what I did. Thank you for listening to me ramble about this story too. You've been real supportive  
> Inspirations for this story include Frozen, Skyrim, late night convos with my best friend, this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cIZmMMTDWg, and a bunch of other tiny stuffs that influenced everything about this in one way or another  
> Alright so I think that's enough. Thank you all and I hope you had a good time reading this. See you on the next project, which is already under development anyway :3c  
> Bye then!!


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